LIBRARY 

OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class 


THE    RELIGIOUS    SENSE 

IN  ITS 

SCIENTIFIC    ASPECT 


THREE  LECTURES  GIVEN  BEFORE  STUDENTS 
OF  THE  SEVERAL  DEPARTMENTS  AT 
KING'S  COLLEGE,  LONDON,  JUNE,  1902 


THE    RELIGIOUS 
SENSE    IN    ITS 
SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT 

By    GREVILLE    MACDONALD,    M.D. 
P| 


To  be  still  searching  what  we  know  not  by  what  we  know, 
still  closing  up  truth  to  truth  as  we  find  it,  this  is  the  golden 
rule.— MILTON. 


NEW   YORK 
A.    C.    ARMSTRONG    AND    SON 

3  AND   5   WEST   EIGHTEENTH   STREET 

LONDON  :  HODDER  AND  3TOUGHTON 

1903 


GENERAL 


We  have  still  one  request  left.  We  have  at  least  reflected 
and  taken  pains  in  order  to  render  our  propositions  not  only 
true,  but  of  easy  and  familiar  access  to  men's  minds,  however 
wonderfully  prepossessed  and  limited.  Yet  it  is  but  just  that 
we  should  obtain  this  favour  from  mankind  (especially  in  so 
great  a  restoration  of  learning  and  the  sciences),  that  whoso- 
ever may  be  desirous  of  forming  any  determination  upon  an 
opinion  of  this  our  work  either  from  his  own  perceptions, 
or  the  crowd  of  authorities,  or  the  forms  of  demonstrations, 
he  will  not  expect  to  be  able  to  do  so  in  a  cursory  manner, 
and  whilst  attending  to  other  matters ;  but  in  order  to  have 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  subject,  will  himself  by  degrees 
attempt  the  course  which  we  describe  and  maintain ;  will  be 
accustomed  to  the  subtilty  of  things  which  is  manifested  by 
experience  ;  and  will  correct  the  depraved  and  deeply  rooted 
habits  of  his  mind  by  a  seasonable  and  as  it  were  just  hesi- 
tation :  and  then  finally  (if  he  will)  use  his  judgment  when 
he  has  begun  to  be  master  of  himself. — BACON'S  Novztm 
Organum  (concluding  paragraph  to  Preface). 


TO    MY    FATHER 


335 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

SYNOPSIS  IX 


LECTURE    I 

THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  ....  I 

LECTURE    II 

THE   RELIGION   OF    RENUNCIATION  .  .         79 

LECTURE  III 

THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM  l6l 


vii 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


To  face  page 

PLATE    I.  THE  FORAMINIFERA       .       .       .       .51 


,,     II.  THE  SPONGILLA 53 

„  III.  VENUS'S  FLOWER-BASKET      ...      54 

„     IV.  THE  DAISY 107 

„  V.  THE  GUELDER-ROSE       .        .        .       .121 

„  VI.  THE  PEARLY  NAUTILUS        .        .        .219 


SYNOPSIS 

LECTURE  I 

THE  RELIGION  OF  SERVICE 

ALL  thought  that  is  not  confined  to  bread-winning 
is  philosophy.  If,  to  acquire  wisdom,  we  labour  in 
the  fields  of  knowledge,  we  are  serving  ideals  that 
transcend  the  claims  of  utilitarianism.  But  knowledge 
is  not  wisdom. 

(1)  This  desire  for   understanding  is    but  seeking 
simplification  of  the  complex.     Simplification  consists 
in  classification  of  facts  and  phenomena  and  their  rele- 
gation to  law.      All  philosophers  and  scientists   are 
driven  to  their  work  by  the  old  question,  "  What  is 
Truth  ?  "     The  child  seeking  education  in  his  infantile 
questions,  and  the  philosopher  teaching  his  wisdom, 
are  united  in  their  desire  for  simplification  of  phe- 
nomena and  classification  of  facts.      The  relation  of 
poetry  to  science. 

(2)  The    brotherhood    of    all    life.      The    law    of 
Heraclitus  is  now  substantiated,  and  expresses  in  idea 
the  law  of  evolution.     All  that  life  owns  is  through 
inheritance. 

(3)  Like  all  other  human  attributes,  the  religious 
sense  is  an  inheritance  from  mighty  small  beginnings, 


x  SYNOPSIS 

else  is  man  a  special  creation  :  a  theory  we  cannot 
study  biology  and  hold.  Like  other  faculties,  such 
as  love  and  reason,  it  may  be  passive  or  active ;  its 
possessor  may  be  unconscious  of  it  or  conscious.  The 
religious  sense  prevails  throughout  creation,  evolving, 
like  everything  else,  from  small  beginnings  to  high 
on-goings.  The  religious  sense  not  separable  in  idea 
from  the  ethical  sense.  The  religious  or  ethical  sense 
may  be  defined  as  the  passive  or  active  acceptation 
of  the  Law's  demands  of  service  that  transcends  the 
immediate  needs  of  individual  or  community.  The 
relation  of  the  social  to  the  religious  sense  is  not  one 
of  identity,  but  of  evolution.  The  relation  of  each  of 
these  to  personal  obligation  is  also  one  of  evolution. 

(4)  Classification  of  the  proposed  lectures.     The  first 
deals  with  the  story  of  the  simplest  social  life,  that 
of  the  sponge,  and  shows  how  each  individual  in  the 
community  serves  self,  the  community  and  the  unknown 
Law  in  which  it  has  being:   thus  it   deals  with  the 
Religion  of  Service.     The  second  deals  with  the  mani- 
festation of  the  Law  in  the  renunciation  of  self-interest, 
and  shows  how  the  beautiful  comprises  obedience  to 
Law,  and  thus  reveals  the  truth  of  the  religious  sense. 
The  third  lecture  discusses  the  Religion  of  Freedom, 
and  shows  how,  through  Man's  emancipation  from  the 
chains  of  the  Law,  he  attains  greater  power  to  fulfil 
the  Law,  although  through  this  same  freedom  comes 
his  possibility  of  degradation. 

(5)  The  properties  of  the  primordial  protoplasm  in 
relation  to  physical  forces.     It  holds  all  the  essential 
properties  of  life — growth,   procreation,  death.     The 
lowly  forms  of  life  prove  that  structure  is  not  respon- 
sible for  function,  but  rather  that  function  designs 
structure.     It  is  the  idea  of  form  and  function  that  is 


SYNOPSIS  xi 

transmitted  ;  and  upon  the  strength  of  this  inheritance 
amoeba  and  man  build  their  structure.  The  shell- 
forms  of  the  organless  foraminifera. 

(6)  The  structure  of  the  spongilla  fluviatilis — a  colony 
of  individual  workers,  each  intent  upon  the  service  of 
self,  the  service  of  the  community,  and  the  service 
of  the  Law,  whose  purposes  transcend  these  humbler 
functions.     The  sponge's  moat  and  walls,  its  citadel 
and  streets,   its   masons    and  sweepers.      The    indi- 
vidual's life  consists   in   each  being   intent   upon  its 
work:   and  its  work  is  divine  so  far  as  it  thrives  in 
obedience  to  the  Law  of  its  cause. 

(7)  The  elemental  beginnings  of  the  religious  sense 
no  more  necessitate  self-consciousness   than  do  the 
beginnings  of  reason  or  other  human  attributes.     Yet 
we  ourselves  can  no   more    dissociate  the  religious 
sense  from,  self-consciousness  than  we  can  altogether 
separate  the  faculty  of  seeing  from  thought  concerning 
objects  seen.     But  the  elements  of  consciousness  must 
have  been  present  in  the  primordial  protoplasm,  else 
man  could  not  have  been  evolved  from  it.     Anthropo- 
morphism.     But,    if    the    sponge-sarcode    possesses 
all  the  elemental  properties  of  man,  must  we  accord 
it  a  soul?     We  do  not  belittle  the  oak-tree  because 
of  its  beginning  in  the  acorn ;   nor  is  man's  soul  the 
less  because  its  possibility  lay  dimly  in  a  particle  of 
primordial  protoplasm.      The  difference  between  the 
protoplasmic  mason  and  man  is  this,  that  man's  soul 
is  in  part  free,  and  thus  responsible  to  the  Law  for 
his  labour,  while  the  sponge-sarcode's  is  wholly  captive 
to  the  Law,  and  thrives  in  a  passive  obedience. 


xii  SYNOPSIS 

LECTURE  II 

THE  RELIGION  OF  RENUNCIATION 

(i)  FURTHER  consideration  as  to  the  reality  of  the 
religious  sense,  which,  it  may  be  objected,  must  be 
conscious  and  voluntary  in  its  exercise.  Yet  the  eye 
of  a  fish  is  the  same  organ  as  the  eye  of  a  man, 
though  mere  passivity  is  the  mental  counterpart  of 
the  former,  and  imagination  the  ideal  equivalent  of  the 
other.  Objections  of  theology  and  pure  science  met. 
The  religious  sense  implies  bondage, between  life  and 
the  unknown :  it  is  ethical  because  it  implies  obli- 
gation. While  the  bondage  is  most  manifest  in  lowly 
forms  of  life,  the  ethical  obligation  is  most  susceptible 
of  demonstration  in  man  because  of  his  freedom. 
There  are  three  standpoints  in  the  evolution  of  the 
religious  sense  as  a  vital  equivalent :  (i)  Egoism ; 
(ii)  Altruism ;  (iii)  Transcendentalism ;  and  each  leads 
up  to  and  merges  into  that  above  it  in  imperceptible 
steps  of  gradation. 

(2)  In  this  lecture  it  will  be  shown  (a)  that  obedience 
to  the  Law  manifests  itself  in  terms  of  beauty,  and 
(#)  that  renunciation  of  self-service  is  definitely  pro- 
claimed as  essential  in   the  sense  of  religion.      The 
theory  offered  is  the  old  one  of  the  poet  that  Beauty 
is   Truth,   is   the  revelation  of  the  Law.     Thus  will 
it  be  found  that  Religion  and  Beauty  are  inseparable, 
and  that   the  ethical  is   not  far   removed  from    the 
aesthetic.     Why  Beauty  is  not  always  manifest  in  things 
that  live  in  obedience. 

(3)  Story  of  the  Daisy.      Renunciation  is  no  mere 
fancy  woven  in  the  complex  fabric  of  our  environment, 


SYNOPSIS  xiii 

but  pervades  all  Nature.  We  find  illustration  of  this 
fact  in  two  communities  of  flowers :  (a)  the  daisy ; 
(b)  the  wild  guelder-rose.  In  the  former  certain  indi- 
viduals have  relinquished  some  privileges  further  to 
serve ;  in  the  latter  we  find  more  complete  renunciation 
of  the  privilege  of  work  in  fulfilling  the  Law's  needs. 
The  daisy's  work  in  handing  onwards  the  torch  of  life 
in  its  own  special  form,  and  how  it  comes  to  shine  in 
beauty.  The  function  of  beauty.  As  the  daisy  de- 
clares in  beauty  the  ethical  equivalent  of  its  being,  so 
does  all  right  living  shine  in  colour  and  symmetry. 
Duty  lies  at  the  very  root  of  life,  and  is  not  an  instru- 
ment for  saving  souls.  The  relation  of  the  daisy's 
renunciation  to  utility  and  the  social  sense. 

(4)  Story  of  the  wild  guelder-rose.     Its  beauty  due 
to  those  sentinel  members   of  its  loosely  tied   com- 
munity which  have  relinquished  all  work.     How,  then, 
do  they  manifest  the  truth  and  serve  the  Law  in  their 
beauty  ?    The  ideality  of  beauty  implies  a  wider  range 
of  reality  than  is   comprehended  in  our  systems,  for 
Beauty  proclaims  its  utility  in  revealing  the  depths  of 
light.     Yet  to  feel  something  of  beauty  is  a  better 
gift  than   to  prove  beauty  to  be  the  expression  of 
the  Law. 

(5)  The  relation  of  utility  to  ethics  and  aesthetics. 
Two  questions  must  be  answered:  (i)  one  from  the 
scientists,  and  (ii)  one  from  the  idealists.     The  former 
claim  that  the  flowers'  beauty  is  but  utilitarian,  and 
is    accomplished  through    the  insects'  selection    and 
crossing  of  the  most  favoured  specimens.     They  also 
assert  that  morality  is  but  the  law  of  social  advantage. 
And  they  challenge  contradiction.     The  idealist,  on  the 
contrary,  asks  whether  the  ideal  of  beauty  and  morals 
is  not  degraded   by  arguments  which  seek  to  prove 


xiv  SYNOPSIS 

that  both  are  primarily  utilitarian,  even  if,  at  the  same 
time,  they  are  held  to  transcend  mundane  needs. 

(6)  The    scientist's    utilitarianism     is    only    to    be 
answered  by  showing  the  limitations  of  his  facts,  and 
how  even  he  cannot  escape  asking  questions  which 
his  facts  fail  to  explain :   otherwise  he  falls  back  on 
the  term  accident,  which,  as  the  antithesis   to   Law, 
should  be  the  rankest  of  heresies  to  the  law-seeker, 
Yet  must  it  be  conceded  that  both  morals  and  beauty 
are  utilitarian,  though  the  extent  of  their  service  cannot 
be  measured. 

(7)  The  flower,  says  the  idealist,  is  beautiful  only 
because   it  transcends   its    obligation    to    its   species 
and  the  needs  of  insect-conveyers   of  pollen,   while 
the  very  essence  of  virtue  lies  in   its   disinterested- 
ness.    In  answer  this  objector  is  asked  to  conceive  of 
a  system  of  morality  or  of  beauty  that  shall  be  devoid 
of  utilitarian  intent.     Virtue  is  not  the  less  pure  that 
it  inevitably  brings  its  reward,  nor  beauty  less  true 
that  it  is  a  revelation  of  the  Law. 

(8)  Last  word   on  the    Religion    of   Renunciation. 
There  is  no  hardship  or  cruelty  in  Nature  so  long  as 
renunciation  is  in  favour  of  the  Law's  intent.      Even 
in  the  survival  of  the  strong  and  falling  away  of  the 
weak  there  is  no  cruelty,  provided  the  Law  is  served 
in  its  high  intent. 


SYNOPSIS  xv 

LECTURE  III 

THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM 

(i)  FINAL  words  on  the  Reality  of  the  Religious  Sense. 
The  two  objections  to  it — (a)  that,  because  many  do  not 
possess  it,  the  sense  is  not  real,  and  (b]  that  it  is  merely 
an  artificial  product  of  an  artificial  environment,  (a)  If 
the  former  be  just,  there  is  no  further  argument,  because 
we  are  not  agreed  as  to  our  data.  But  the  sense  is  a 
vital  force  in  all  who  do  not  oppose  the  Law  in  vice, 
luxury,  or  cynicism.  Instances  in  proof  of  this  claim. 
(b)  The  second  objection  is  too  foolish  to  need  answer 
to  the  scientific,  who  understand  the  meaning  and 
influence  of  environment,  which,  never  generating 
anything,  is  but  the  soil,  good  or  bad,  in  which  things 
are  able  to  assert  their  vitality. 

(2)  Yet  the  religious   sense    appears  to  have    de- 
generated in  man,  whereas  it  should,  prima  facie,  give 
extended  manifestation  with  his  increase  of  attainment. 
The  disaster  has  befallen  man  because  of  the  lack  of 
inspiration  in  his  work,  and  because  his  sense  of  need 
in  and  obligation  to  the  Law  has  waned. 

(3)  Is  not  this,  then,  failure  on  the  part  of  the  Law 
which    should    give    us    inspiration?      The    question 
expresses    the  whole  difficulty  of  those  who   could 
believe  in  God  but  for  sin  and  suffering.      It  must 
be  answered  fearlessly  and  truthfully,  or  faith  is  not 
possible.    The  Law  needs  for  its  higher  work  labourers 
that  are  freed  of  their  chains.     If  they  be  still  chained, 
like  sponge  and  guelder-rose,  no  higher  evolution  in 
individual,  society,  or  work  were  possible.      Because 
of  man's  freedom  comes  the  possibility  of  wrong-doing. 


xvi  SYNOPSIS 

The  story  of  the  Bee,  to  whom  virtue  and  vice  are 
alike  impossible. 

(4)  The  Fable  of  the  Chess-players  who  carved  their 
own  men.     The  story  of  the  evolution  of  Sin  and  the 
advent  of  the  Perfect  Man,  who  sacrificed  all  for  the 
Will  of  His  Master. 

(5)  Freedom  the  final  outcome  of   our  growth   in 
the  religious  sense.     Thus  is  the  religious  sense  in- 
separable from  political  advance,  if  both  seek  Freedom. 
Follows  a  historical  clue  to  the  study  of  our  religion 
and  our  democracy.      Stephen    Langton;   Simon  de 
Montfort ;  the  days  of  the  Tudors ;   the  Revolution ; 
the  Royal  Society  as  cradle  of  the  newborn  freedom 
in   Science.      All  movement   in    progress    has   come 
because  some  have  been  strong  enough  to  justify  their 
faith    in    ideals    that    transcend    advantage.      Martin 
Luther. 

(6)  The    principles   of   protestantism  are  those    of 
freedom,  and  are  inseparable  from  those  of  democracy. 
In  speaking  of  principles  one  does  not  imply  theo- 
logical   dogmas    or    political    codes,    but  the  power 
which   begins   and  continues  any  movement.      Indi- 
vidualism forms  the  basis  of  Christianity,  the  spirit  oi 
protestantism,  and  the  aim  of  democracy.     All  these 
are  opposed  to  clericalism  and  socialism. 

(7)  Last  words  to  show  that  the  idea  of  Freedom 
is  in  no  sense  inimical  to  that  of  obligation  or  of 
obedience.     The  vulgar  idea  of  Freedom  reduced  to  its 
logical  absurdity.     The  whole  conception  of  Freedom 
is  opportunity  to  grow.      Freedom   is    distinct  from 
licence,  power  from  tyranny,  charity  from  self-interested 
altruism,  and  egoism  from  self-seeking.     The  growth  of 
Freedom  is  the  freeing  of  Power.     Neither  can  stand 
save  in  obedience  to  their  inherent  prospective  intent. 


The  Religion  of  Service 


THE    RELIGION    OF    SERVICE 

IT  is  not  my  intention  to  discuss  the 
academic  philosophies,  although  you  may 
suppose  that  a  subject  such  as  the  religious 
sense  calls  for  some  recognition  of  the  work 
done  by  great  thinkers.  I  even  disclaim  any 
deep  study  of  many  writers  who  have  sought 
to  elucidate  the  mystery  surrounding  our  life 
in  its  relation  to  the  mighty  Cause.  And  yet 
I  claim  fellowship  with  all  the  philosophers, 
just  as  everyone  who,  wondering  at  his  own 
power  as  contrasted  with  its  limits,  or  re- 
garding the  eternal  in  relation  to  man's  brief 

3 


4  THE   RELIGIOUS    SENSE 

opening  of  eye  upon  its  revelations,  knows 
that  it  is  his  duty,  if  he  would  justify  his 
soul,  to  ask  great  questions.  For  herein, 
you  will  perceive,  Man  is  exalted  into  a 
dignity  far  transcending  his  supposed  right 
to  get  the  utmost  satisfaction  out  of  his  life. 
Many  of  us  are  driven  to  face  the  world 
with  an  enquiry  that  probes  deeper  than  its 
surface-pile  of  custom  and  respectability. 
We  find  that  to  live  in  true  manliness  we 
must  labour  in  the  fields  of  human  nature, 
and  accept  all  things,  sweet  or  sour,  of  hope 
or  despair,  as  our  food.  We  are  compelled, 
I  say,  to  accept  as  necessary  to  us  conditions 
and  ideas  that,  according  to  the  mere  political 
economist  or  utilitarian,  do  not  concern  our 
welfare.  In  other  words,  we  must  admit  that 
obligations  urge  all  of  us  who  seek  wisdom 
to  recognise  and  overcome  difficulties  that, 
for  our  so-called  peace  of  mind,  were  better 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  5 

ignored,  and,  so   far  as  our  worldly  success 
is  concerned,  had  best  be  set  aside. 

I  shall,  then,  speak  to  you  about  things 
that  we  admit  have  no  practical  bearing 
upon  the  necessities  of  life, — as  these  are 
counted  by  some  who  hold  the  object  of 
work  to  be  the  making  of  money  and  the 
buying  of  ease.  In  our  leanings  to  deep 
thought,  and  in  our  hard  study  to  understand 
that  which  is  beyond  the  facts  of  our  daily 
labour,  we  tacitly,  ,  though  most  potently, 
proclaim  our  obligation  to  justify  the  soul 
of  man  in  its  high  endeavours.  If  we 
strive,  as  the  great  ones  of  the  earth  have 
ever  striven,  to  better  society  and  fertilise 
man's  higher  impulses,  we  are  but  admitting 
that  transcendental  ideals,  however  little  we 
are  able  to  define  their  import,  are  strong 
within  us.  We  admit  that  all  great  thought 
in  the  world  is  inspired  by  such  ideal  forces, 


6  THE   RELIGIOUS    SENSE 

even  though  many  seek  to  belittle  their 
influence  upon  us.  The  fact  that  vague 
intuitions  of  grand  possibilities  are  ever 
stronger  in  moving  individual  and  society 
to  noble  action  than  the  grim  facts  of  daily 
necessities  is  in  itself  strong  evidence  that 
the  origin  of  such  ideals  lies  in  a  world 
or  atmosphere  of  eternal  truth.  And  we, 
whether  we  are  but  weary  men  and  women 
or  are  hope-inspired  poets  ;  whether  we  are 
seeking  light  by  acquiring  knowledge  or  are 
hidden  from  the  sun  in  the  mines  of  com- 
merce;  one  and  all  of  us  are  more  deeply 
concerned  in  our  relation  to  that  which 
we  must  admit  to  be  unknown  than  in 
our  worship  of  success  and  intellect  we  can 
understand. 

I  confess,  though  I  would  make  all  men 
philosophers,  that  I  do  not  attach  much  value 
to  the  study  of  systems  of  philosophy. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  7 

Nevertheless,  we  may  well  believe  the 
wisdom  of  the  ancients  to  be  of  higher 
worth  than  the  mere  scientific  knowledge 
of  our  own  day  :  wisdom  is  more  than  know- 
ledge because  it  necessarily  deals  with  the 
transcendental  and  ethical  rather  than  with 
mundane  facts  and  necessities.  The  systems 
of  philosophy  are  of  historic  and  academic 
interest  rather  than  of  practical  importance  : 
they  are  the  dead  languages  of  great  minds, 
although  they  lived  and  bore  fruit  in  virtue 
of  that  same  eternal  spirit  of  enquiry  which, 
I  say,  must  be  stirring  in  some  measure 
even  yourselves  and  myself,  or  we  should 
not  be  here  assembled.  But  in  this  day 
our  method  of  intellectual  labour  is  changed, 
chiefly  because  the  materials  offered  to  us 
for  such  labour  are  so  greatly  increased. 
Nevertheless,  as  the  dead  languages,  which 
we  now  study  because  of  their  scientific 


8  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

and  academic  interest  rather  than  for  their 
utility,  once  lived  in  virtue  of  the  same 
human  needs  that  still  make  language  neces- 
sary, so  the  old  systems  of  philosophy 
dealt  with  the  same  eternal  questions  that 
still  beset  us  in  changing  form,  but  with 
unchanging  spirit.  And  if  we  accept  our 
new  fields  for  cultivation  and  our  new 
ploughs  for  upturning  their  soil  in  the 
spirit  of  a  humble  farmer  who,  though 
striving  with  Nature,  yet  waits  upon  her 
ministrations,  we  shall,  I  believe,  discover 
that  the  eternal  truths  are  ever  revealing 
themselves. 

Though  knowledge  is  not  wisdom,  and 
science,  because  of  its  limitations,  is  not  truth, 
every  new  fact  that  is  acquired  must  be  ac- 
cepted as  a  gem  holding  fit  and  essential  place 
in  the  eternal  cosmos.  We  are  often  tempted 
to  reject  facts  if  they  contradict  our  cherished 


THE   RELIGION  OF   SERVICE  9 

traditions  ;   but,  if  we  are  real  students  and 
not   mere  searchers  for   philosophers'  stones, 
we   shall  accept  everything  that  is  given  us 
because  holding  in    its  heart   some    measure 
of    revelation.      No  jewelled    insect   shining 
for  a  day,  no  mammoth  buried    for  a  small 
eternity,  no  new  example  of  the  dependence 
of  life   upon    physical    forces,  can   do   other 
than  increase  our  determination  to  find  new 
food  for  our  deeper  learning.     If,  moreover, 
we  accept  the  facts  offered  us  by  the  men 
of  science  in   a  spirit  more  reverential  than 
is   sometimes   evinced    by   their   philosophic 
effronteries,   we   shall,    I    believe,   gain    more 
for   our    religion,   if    it   is   sincere,    than    we 
can  at  present  imagine. 

I  seek  in  these  lectures  to  tell  you  the 
true  nature  of  what  is  commonly  understood 
by  the  term  the  religious  sense.  Before  I 
have  done  you  will  believe  that  this  sense 


io  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

is  as  real  as  any  other  of  our  senses  or 
emotions,  as  real  as  any  of  our  intellectual 
faculties.  And  please  observe  this  at  the 
outset :  I  shall  not  help  you  to  accredit  this 
religious  sense  by  belittling  it,  but  by  exalt- 
ing it,  although  we  shall  perhaps  best  grasp 
its  reality  by  searching  for  and  finding  its 
elemental  beginnings.  But  we  have  to  clear 
some  ground,  whether  because  it  lies  fallow 
or  gives  life  to  that  which  cumbers  it, 
before  we  can  go  straight  forward  in  our 
husbandry. 

In  this  lecture  I  am  going  to  show  you 
in  the  first  place  (i)  that  all  understanding 
depends  upon  simplification,  and  that  the 
simplification  of  phenomena  consists  in 
relegating  them  to  the  law  responsible  for 
them  ;  and  in  the  second  (ii)  that  the  law  of 
life  is  pervaded  by  a  marvellous  uniformity 
of  method  and  purpose,  which  becomes  more 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  11 

apparent  as  we  acquire  knowledge,  and  that 
this  law  enfolds  all  creation  in  a  mighty 
brotherhood  or  sharing  of  inheritance.  Next, 
(iii)  in  affirming  that  the  religious  sense 
exists  germinally  in  all  forms  of  life,  I  shall 
define  it.  Then,  (iv)  after  giving  you  a 
classification  of  my  lectures,  I  shall  proceed 
(v)  to  tell  you  of  certain  primordial  forms 
of  life,  and  (vi)  to  show  you  how  we  find 
indisputable  evidence  of  an  embryonic  re- 
ligious sense  in  such  lowly  forms  of  animal 
life  as  the  sponge.  Lastly,  (vii)  I  shall 
show  you  how  we  may  define  the  difference 
between  a  sponge  and  Man,  especially  in 
relation  to  this  religious  sense. 

(i).  All  thought  that  transcends  the  daily 
toil  has,  I  take  it,  but  one  object  in  view — 
viz.  to  understand ;  and  this  desire  for 
understanding  will  always  resolve  itself  into  a 
simplification  of  things  that  appear  complex. 


12  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

To   put    it    in  more  ordinary  terms,    every- 
one  who  asks  a  question    dealing  with   the 
abstract  seeks  an  expression  or  definition  of 
some  law  that  will  explain  the  phenomenon 
exciting     the     enquiry.       Even     the     child 
who    first    looks    upon    an    opening     daisy 
sees    in    it    a    revelation    of    some    hitherto 
unsuspected   wonder,   and   seeks   to   find  its 
parallel  among  his  small  experiences.      Tell 
such   child   that   the   daisy   unfolds   its   bud 
because   it   cannot   help   it,  and  he  may  be 
silenced ;    but   he   is   not    enlightened    by   a 
stupid   formulation  of  a  fact  that  was  suffi- 
ciently obvious.     Tell  him,  on  the  other  hand, 
as   a   wise    mother   would,   that    the    flower 
blows  because  God  wished  it  to  do  so,  and 
he  immediately  finds  himself  confronted  with 
an  ethical  law  which  he  understands  because 
it  is  the  same  bond  which  connects  parental 
authority  and  his  own  actions ;  his  budding 


THE   RELIGION   OF  SERVICE  13 

desire  for  understanding  is  satisfied  because 
of  this  simplification  of  his  facts.  And  I 
maintain  that  such  a  reply  to  a  child  is 
truly  scientific  in  spirit,  although  the  rever- 
ential mother,  in  so  speaking,  is  altogether 
ignorant  of  the  evolution  of  the  flower  or 
of  botanical  classification.  To  tell  a  child 
that  a  flower  buds  because  it  cannot  do 
otherwise  is  an  infamous  snub  to  his  small 
philosophic  heart ;  to  tell  him  that  God  made 
him  and  the  flower  that  they  should  both 
do  His  will  and  justify  Him  in  making  them/ 
points  out  to  the  child  the  great  truth  that 
there  is  uniformity  in  law  between  him 
and  the  daisy,  and  that  they  own  a  common 
parentage  in  that  power  which,  in  its  integral 
embrace  of  the  universe,  we  are  justified  in 
calling  divine. 

Concerning   this    uniformity   of  Nature    I 
shall  have  much  to  say  as  we  proceed.     At 


14  THE   RELIGIOUS    SENSE 

the  moment  I  am  content  to  suggest  to  you 
that  the  instinct  of  the  child  is  always  one 
of  brotherhood  towards  each  new  experience 
of  life  as  it  rushes  into  his  eager  mind.  He 
kisses  the  flowers,  runs  after  the  birds  with 
outstretched  arms  to  embrace  them,  hugs 
the  kitten  in  tender  fellowship.  All  things  are 
part  of  his  life,  and  the  more  of  them  he 
possesses  in  fine  intelligence  and  loving 
fellowship,  the  bigger  grows  his  life.  To 
me  such  phenomena  are  but  the  instinctive 
knowledge  of  natural  truth  that  abounds  in 
the  simple-minded,  but  which  the  philosopher 
ignores,  partly  because  he  forgets  many 
worthy  things,  partly  because  he  is  over- 
whelmed with  minor  knowledge.  And  in 
the  child's  questionings  we  perceive  indica- 
tions of  what  we  call  the  scientific  spirit. 
For,  having  collected  his  facts,  he  seeks 
to  classify  and  simplify  them  by  a  law 


THE   RELIGION  OF   SERVICE  15 

that  shall  prove  common  to  all  of  them. 
Such  innate  sense  of  the  scientific  is  indeed 
the  basis  of  all  mental  action  :  as  soon  as  we 
select,  from  the  ever  unwinding  concatenation 
of  facts  presented  to  our  mind,  individual 
items  that  possess  a  common  cause  or  con- 
tribute to  a  similar  effect,  we  have  mental 
action  as  distinct  from  mere  automatism ; 
and  we  simplify.  The  indolent  watching  of 
events,  however  intent  the  consciousness  may 
be,  does  not  constitute  thought :  mental 
action  lies  in  the  scientific  understanding  of 
the  relation  of  events  to  one  another,  however 
distant  they  may  seem  to  be ;  and  this 
association  arises  from  an  innate  desire  for 
simplification.  Thus  I  am  justified  in  affirm- 
ing that  a  germinal  scientific  spirit  is  evinced 
by  the  child  asking  questions  about  a  daisy 
because  he  would  assign  it  a  place  of  fellow- 
ship alongside  of  his  own  budding  self.  And 


16  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

I  shall  presently  show  you  that  the  religious 
sense  is  even  more  definitely  germinal  in 
all  forms  of  life. 

In  the  same  desire  for  simplification  of 
phenomena,  the  philosopher  has  ever  sought 
a  law  that  should  explain  all  things:  and 
not  the  less  so  that  his  systems  are  com- 
plicated and  his  conclusions  hard  to  under- 
stand. The  question  throughout  all  time  has 
ever  been  that  of  Pilate,  "  What  is  Truth  ?  " 
Every  philosopher  has  asked  that  question 
as  the  reason  for  his  work,  knowing  that, 
when  he  found  the  answer,  all  laws  and 
systems,  all  conflicts  of  right  and  wrong, 
would  stand  revealed  in  an  indisputable 
simplicity.  And  to-day  we  in  our  fuller 
knowledge  still  ask,  What  is  Truth  ?  though 
we  seek  but  the  simplification  of  facts.  The 
simplification  of  all  chemical  processes  lies 
in  Dalton's  atomic  theory ;  the  wonders  of 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  17 

the  heavens  are  all  harmonized  in  the  laws 
of  Newton  and  the  theories  of  La  Place  ; 
the  history  of  evolution  is  comprised  in 
the  hypotheses  of  Lamark,  Darwin,  and 
Weissmann ;  and  so  on.  The  desire  of  the 
scientific  man  is  the  desire  of  the  philosopher  ; 
but  the  latter  is  more  passionately  desirous 
of  understanding  Man  and  the  law  that 
accounts  for,  governs,  and  frees  him,  while 
the  scientist,  his  desires  not  reaching  beyond 
his  immediate  environment  of  facts,  finds 
content  in  the  acknowledgment  of  his 
limitations. 

And  in  this  place  I  am  anxious,  for  reasons 
that  will  before  long  become  apparent,  to 
show  that  there  is  yet  another  class  of  man 
who,  in  his  own  way  also,  is  deeply  desirous — 
perhaps  even  more  so  than  either  philosopher 
or  scientist— to  ask  in  widest  wisdom  the 
question,  What  is  Truth?  and  who  will 

2 


i8  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

accept  only  such  approaches  to  answer  as 
make  for  simplification.  I  refer  to  the 
poet. 

I  might  engage  much  of  your  time — and 
not  unprofitably,  I  think — in  proving  to  you 
the  importance — indeed,  the  necessity — of 
your  understanding  the  true  place  of  the  poet 
in  our  education,  whether  as  individuals  or 
race.  For  his  methods  of  expressing  thought 
are  the  methods  of  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  ;  of  every  race,  cultured  or  aboriginal  ; 
of  pope  or  penitent,  prince  or  pauper.  All 
language  is  based  upon  the  system  of  meta- 
phorical expression.  Our  growth  in  mi  rid 
is  but  increasing  victory  in  expression.  Our 
language,  whether  in  its  proverbs,  its  idioms, 
or  its  words,  is  a  system  of  representing 
abstract  ideas  in  concrete  metaphor.  This 
is  Nature's  law  of  speech  and  thought :  the 
poets  have  made  language.  Upon  some 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  19 

other  occasion  I  may  have  the  privilege  of 
showing  you  that  humbler  creatures  than 
ourselves,  from  whom  we  descend  and  inherit 
all  the  potentialities  of  life,  present  and  to 
come,  also  have  obeyed  a  law  of  symbolic 
expression.  Nothing  grows  save  in  virtue 
of  the  principles  of  its  beginning.  You 
will  see,  if  you  give  this  a  little  thought, 
that  I  am  stretching  no  point  in  thus 
extolling  the  position  of  the  poet.  He 
teaches  us  expression ;  and  without  the 
means  of  expression,  I  take  it,  there  is 
little  means  of  learning. 

I  claim  that  the  use  of  metaphor  is 
the  natural  way  of  teaching  and  learning  ; 
consequently,  although  I  am  now  essaying 
to  instruct  you  in  matters  of  science,  which 
has  no  dealings  save  with  fact,  and  in 
matters  of  philosophy,  wherein  we  must 
be  wary  lest  the  symbol  be  mistaken  for 


20  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

the  life  itself,  or  the  material  for  the  vital 
power  that  materializes, — consequently,  I 
say,  I  shall  make  frequent  use  of  my  natural 
right :  I  shall  use  metaphor,  and  even  fable, 
if  need  be,  so  long  as  I  am  careful  that 
neither  I  nor  you  mistake  illustration  of 
an  idea  for  evidence  of  fact,  nor  similar- 
ity of  appearance  for  analogy  of  nature. 
Indeed,  I  maintain  that  Shakespeare 
succeeds  in  educating  us  where  Kant,  for 
instance,  fails.  I  hold  that  Burns  has  seen 
deeper  into  some  laws  of  Nature  than  Plato. 
I  believe  that  the  poet,  like  the  child,  often 
feels,  and  hence  in  some  measure  under- 
stands, that  uniformity  of  Nature  in  sim- 
plicity of  law  which  is  withheld  alike  from 
the  experience  and  intelligence  of  the  philo- 
sopher. And  why?  Simply  because  poet 
and  child,  being  simple  offspring  of  Nature, 
use  her  own  method  of  expression,  and  learn 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  21 

something  of  wisdom  in  spite  of  the  lack 
of  scientific  precision  in  their  observations 
and  of  logic  in  their  deductions. 

The  scientific  man  considers  himself  the 
antithesis  of  the  irrational  poet,  and  thinks 
that  the  poetical  method  is  inconsistent  with 
the  purpose  of  science.  The  poet,  on  the 
other  hand,  often  holds  the  scientist  in  fear 
because  he  misunderstands  the  need  of  crude 
fact.  What  I  would  impress  upon  you  is 
this,  that  the  poetical  method  can  never  be 
unscientific,  for  it  is  itself  a  natural  law. 
If  language  is  a  natural  development,  poetry 
is  the  outcome  of  Law ;  and  that  savant 
who  maintained  that  any  one  of  Nature's 
processes  was  irrational  would  surely  be 
proclaimed  as  unscientific  or  demented ! 
Fancy  a  Darwin  questioning  the  reason- 
ableness of  the  law  of  evolution !  or  an 
astronomer  who  would  dare  reconstruct  the 


22  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

planetary  system  on  a  better  basis !  And 
no  more  than  these  can  the  philosopher 
discard  the  ingenuities  of  language  when  it 
seeks  to  represent  abstract  thought  in  terms 
of  metaphor.  Perhaps  if  the  philosophers 
had  used  more  fully  the  language  of  daily 
life,  they  would  have  succeeded  better,  and 
have  illuminated  what  they  often  set  down 
in  shadow  ;  they  would  have  done  for  thought 
what  Shakespeare  has  done  for  sympathy, 
and  made  the  understanding  of  wisdom  the 
birthright  of  every  man.  And  now  let  me 
proceed. 

(ii).  The  more  surely  science  leads  us  to 
the  simplification  of  facts,  the  more  surely 
we  become  impressed  by  the  uniformity  of 
Law.  To  make  this  apparent  to  those  un- 
versed in  natural  science  would  occupy  more 
time  than  is  at  our  disposal,  and  I  must 
beg  these  to  take  my  words  on  trust.  What 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  23 

I  would  have  everyone  realize,  scientific  or 
unlearned,  is  the  fact,  which,  I  say,  the  simple 
child  appears  to  realize,  of  the  brotherhood 
of  all  life  in  its  essential  conditions.  It  is 
this  fact  that  the  biologist  has  been  so  intent 
upon  demonstrating  all  through  the  past 
century ;  it  is  a  fact  which  every  new  dis- 
covery in  the  buried  histories  of  past  geo- 
logical ages  emphasizes  ever  more  strongly. 
Briefly  we  may  state  that  all  life  has  evolved 
from  lowly  beginnings  to  increasingly  high 
on-goings,  and  that  the  brotherhood  of  life 
is  such  in  virtue  of  a  parentage  in  the  in- 
effable unknown,  however  humble  or  exalted 
the  myriad  species  may  be  in  the  great 
animal  or  vegetable  kingdoms. 

Though  there  be  multitudinous  variations 
and  modifications  in  these  laws,  as  they  adapt 
themselves  to  changing  environment  and 
increase  of  purpose,  the  fundamental  laws 


24  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

remain  unchanged.  If  we  please,  we  may 
define  Life  as  the  manifestation  of  its  idea 
in  fact  by  the  constant  in-taking  for  use,  and 
casting  out  when  done  with,  of  matter,  during 
which  process  physical  laws  are  let  loose  or 
controlled.  In  such  definition  we  say  what  is 
true  of  every  form  of  life.  All  the  laws  of 
physiology,  the  laws  of  birth  and  work,  of 
generation  and  death,  are  summed  up  in 
this  definition,  and  apply  to  all  the  subjects 
of  both  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms. 
We  are  all  offspring  of  one  parent,  and  share 
in  a  common  heritage. 

The  old  Law  of  Heraclitus,  that  nothing 
lives  but  in  virtue  of  its  becoming  other- 
wise in  growth  and  change,  is  absolutely 
substantiated  as  the  great  law  of  Nature ; 
and  in  the  realms!  of  metaphysics  it  has 
a  .  significance  deeper  than  we  can  fathom. 
We  must  grow  or  decay,  live  or  die.  And 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  25 

the  corollary  of  this  law  is  that  nothing 
exists  but  in  virtue  of  that  which  has  gone 
before  and  brought  it.  All  we  possess  is 
in  virtue  of  inheritance.  All  that  we  do 
is  in  virtue  of  the  possibility  in  us  for 
doing,  which  possibility  we  inherit  from 
our  ancestry.  And  our  ancestry,  although 
incapable  of  carrying  into  effect  many  of 
the  possibilities  lying  dormant  within  it,  yet 
was  able — nay,  was  impelled — to  hand  on 
a  possibility  of  wider  growth  :  a  potentiality 
that  could  not  be  realized  until  the  individual 
inheritors  and  transmitters  of  the  Law  had 
grown  capable  of  revealing  it.  And  this 
Law  rules  that  the  race  must  ultimately 
fulfil  its  destiny. 

This  statement,  I  think  you  will  find, 
contains  the  gist  of  the  theory  of  heredity, 
though  it  is  dogmatic  and  expressed  in  terms 
of  teleology.  I  want  you  to  grasp  the  idea 


26  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

for  all  it  is  worth,  as  it  holds  in  it  much  of 
that  simplification  which  I  seek.  As  the 
oak  has  evolved  from  the  acorn  because  of 
the  dormant  possibilities  lying  in  the  germ, 
and  although  such  possibilities  exist  only  in 
idea  or  function  and  not  in  actual  structure  ; 
and  as  that  germ  is  valueless,  in  spite  of 
its  buried  miracle,  without  the  ministration 
of  suitable  soil,  rain,  sun,  and  wind ;  so  have 
we  exalted  animals  been  evolved  from  some 
mighty  primordial  germ  virile  in  virtue  of 
a  possible  destiny.  Nothing  we  achieve, 
nothing  we  feel,  nothing  we  know,  but  the 
possibility  of  its  ultimate  fructification  lay 
hid  or  partly  revealed  in  the  patient,  half- 
sleeping  hearts  of  our  countless  ancestry. 
And  this  is  what  I  mean  by  the  uniformity 
of  life,  by  the  simplicity  of  the  vital  law. 

Is,   then,   such   simplicity    too   vast   in  its 
embrace    for   our   acceptance  ?      Not   to   the 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  27 

true  scientist :  for  he  is  ever  confronted  with 
the  great  fact  that  the  primordial  germ 
contained  in  it  all  the  possibilities  of  the 
myriad  changes  that  led  upwards  to  man's 
creation.  To  the  true  scientist,  I  say,  it 
cannot  be  too  vast,  even  though  he,  knowing 
how  we  possess  nothing  save  in  virtue  of 
our  inheritance,  is  compelled  to  ask,  in  spite 
of  his  cherished  agnosticism,  the  question  of 
questions,  Whence  this  primordial  inherit- 
ance? Of  those  among  you  who  are 
students  of  science  I  would  beg  that  you 
would  carry  about  with  you  this  question, 
and  not  cast  it  from  you  because  you  can 
find  to  it  no  answer  in  fact.  Of  those  of 
you  whose  chosen  work  in  the  world  is  to 
study  the  nature  of  the  divine,  and  teach 
your  suffering  fellows  how  to  draw  from 
the  infinite  wells  of  life  that  which  will 
quench  their  thirst,  I  would  beg  that  you 


28  THE   RELIGIOUS    SENSE 

look  into  the  revelations  of  Nature,  no  less 
than  into  the  revelations  of  Scripture,  and 
find  that  there  is  no  antagonism  in  Truth. 
In  the  simplification  of  Law  lies  the  en- 
couragement of  Faith. 

Nothing  in  us  men,  I  say,  exists  save  in 
virtue  of  our  inheritance.  We  hold  from 
our  parentage  high  estates  that  we  must  ever 
enlarge.  We  hold,  as  certainly,  debts,  and 
with  them,  thank  God  !  an  obligation  to 
liquidate  them.  Our  power  of  love,  our 
freedom  of  will,  our  selfishness,  our  cruelties, 
our  enthralment  to  the  demands  of  that  very 
law  of  life  in  whose  service  we  are  en- 
listed— all  are  ours,  for  good  or  evil,  in  virtue 
of  our  inheritance. 

How,  then,  will  you  biologists  exclaim, 
shall  we  find  love  and  freedom  of  will  in 
an  amoeba,  a  sponge,  a  coral  ;  in  fish,  reptiles, 
birds  and  beasts  of  the  field  ?  Yes,  I  say, 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  29 

we  should  so  find  them  could  we  analyze 
the  vis  vita  which  is  mighty  even  in  these 
in  virtue  of  the  hidden  potential  power :  yes, 
I  say,  when,  given  the  germ  of  the  acorn, 
we  can  analyze  and  discover  in  it  the 
necessity  of  producing  the  oak-tree.  For  if 
you  biologists  repudiate  the  suggestion  that 
the  highest  human  passions  and  virtues  lay 
dormant  in  our  ancestry,  if  you  cannot 
admit  that  here  and  there  upon  the  vast 
ladder  of  ascent  our  own  excellences  and 
depravities  may  be  dimly  indicated  in  our 
humble  progenitors,  then  you  must  allow 
the  only  alternative  :  that  man,  in  his 
essential  being,  differs  from  his  parentage. 
But  in  such  claim  you  advocate  the  theory 
of  special  creation — a  term  which  is  rightly 
repugnant  to  the  evolutionist,  seeing  that 
all  the  wealth  of  his  labour  denies  any 
process  of  creation  except  that  of  growth. 


30  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

All  is  Law,  inexorable,  definite,  unchanging 
Law ;  and  the  law  of  life  is  inheritance, 
whether  it  manifest  itself  as  love  or  free-will, 
as  growth  in  obedience  or  blossoming  in 
freedom.  And  we  students,  humbly  wor- 
shipping at  the  shrine  of  Truth,  must  accept 
all  the  words  that  fall  from  her  mouth, 
whether  they  condemn  our  little  systems  and 
theories,  or  whether  they  inspire  us  with  new 
life  to  pursue  our  journey  and  understand  her 
behests.  Our  purpose  in  study  is  to  obey 
and  understand,  to  love  truth  rather  than 
any  specious  mockery  of  comprehension. 

You  will,  by  this  time,  not  be  surprised 
if  I  affirm  that  the  religious  sense  is  no 
new  acquirement,  but  has  been  dormant 
throughout  our  evolution,  and  is  awakened 
to  a  very  passion  in  the  life  of  some  saints. 
But  I  shall  do  more  than  this :  I  shall, 
I  trust,  convince  you  that  we  have  actual 


THE   RELIGION  OF   SERVICE  31 

evidence  of  the  presence  of  the  religious 
idea,  in  many  manifestations,  throughout 
the  world  of  life.  For  my  purpose  is  to 
show  you  that,  as  structure  and  function 
augment  in  the  evolving  forms  of  life,  so 
do  they  give  us  increasing  evidence  of  the 
relation  of  each  individual  to  the  eternal 
law  of  which  it  is  a  manifestation.  Each 
and  all,  humble  or  exalted,  serve,  in  varying 
degree  of  simplicity  and  success,  the  Idea, 
or  the  Law,  in  virtue  of  which  they  exist, 
although  in  the  same  service  they  must 
pursue  their  individual  duties.  But  this 
declaration  of  my  purpose  does  not  quite 
comprise  what  we  signify  by  the  religious 
sense.  And  I  must  be  more  definite,  al- 
though it  will  scarcely  be  possible  for  you 
to  grasp  the  full  significance  of  a  definition 
until  the  argument  is  completed. 

I  take  it  that  every  mental  and  emotional 


32  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

attribute  may  exist  in  a  passive  and  active 
state.  Whether  it  be  one  or  the  other  de- 
pends upon  the  degree  of  consciousness  and 
freedom  of  action  of  the  individual.  In  the 
transition  of  the  passive  to  the  active  is 
found  the  evolution  or  growth  of  such  attri- 
bute. Let  me  be  more  explicit  Memory  is 
more  finely  developed  in  some  of  the  lower 
animals  than  in  man,  and  many  of  the 
weakest  intellects  among  ourselves  possess 
phenomenally  fine  memories.  But  in  the 
less  highly  developed  minds  the  faculty  of 
memory  is  purely  passive  or  mechanical  or 
involuntary :  a  page  of  history,  for  instance, 
is  read  to  a  feeble-minded  child,  who  after- 
wards will  repeat  it  accurately,  but  will  not 
be  able  to  answer  a  single  question  concerning 
its  matter.  Memory  partakes  of  the  active 
quality  only  when  it  is  wedded  to  intellect 
by  the  high-priest  of  our  will. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  33 

So  with  our  reasoning  faculty.  The  insects 
evince  a  form  of  intelligence  that  has  so  much 
the  appearance  of  mind  that  their  students 
and  lovers  declare  them  to  be  second  only 
in  reasoning  power  to  human  beings.  But 
their  brain-work  is  mechanical,  passive,  in- 
voluntary ;  their  actions  are  impelled  by 
circumstances  from  whose  compulsion  there 
is  no  appeal.  There  is  no  evidence  of 
choice  or  will-power.  Of  this  I  shall  speak 
at  greater  length  in  my  third  lecture. 

Again,  the  emotion  of  love  in  almost 
all  its  aspects  is  met  with  in  the 
humbler  grades  of  life-evolution,  and  I 
suspect  that,  if  we  knew  all,  we  should 
find  no  form  of  life  without  some  measure 
of  this  attribute,  which  philosophers  have 
ever  associated  so  intimately  with  life 
and  creative  power.  But  in  the  humbler 
forms  of  life,  whether  human  or  standing 

3 


34  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

lower,  love  is  also  purely  passive,  and  under 
the  compulsion  of  a  law  that  is  not  perceived 
or  understood  ;  while  in  the  finer  specimens 
of  men  and  women,  perhaps  in  most  of 
them,  love  rises  into  an  active  personal 
equivalent,  in  which  its  possessors  con- 
sciously, voluntarily,  take  part  in  the 
furtherance  of  the  law  by  which  they 
are,  even  if  unconsciously,  encouraged  or 
impelled. 

In  all  such  faculties  or  properties  the 
difference  between  man  and  his  progenitors 
lies  in  his  consciousness  of  the  forces  within 
him,  in  his  power  of  studying  them  and 
understanding  their  origin  and  import,  and 
even  more  in  his  power  of  choosing  which 
of  his  inherited  instincts — the  lower  or  the 
higher — he  will  co-operate  with. 

It  is  my  purpose,  I  say,  to  show  that  the 
religious  sense  prevails  throughout  creation, 


THE   RELIGION  OF   SERVICE  35 

although  it  varies  extraordinarily,  not  only 
in  the  multitude  of  species  but  in  man  also, 
in  its  clearness  of  manifestation.  I  want 
to  insist  upon  the  point  that  this  sense  of 
religion  has  evolved  by  slow  processes  of 
gradation,  as  all  other  animal  attributes, 
whether  structural  or  functional,  have  evolved. 
I  want  to  show  that  the  religious  sense,  no 
less  than  our  bones,  has  evolved  from  pre- 
historic beginnings,  just  as  our  power  of 
will  and  our  faculty  of  renouncing  rights 
and  desires  are  but  the  blossoming,  if 
not  yet  the  fructification,  of  forces  that 
have  lain  dormant  in  the  living  acorn  of 
time. 

(iii).  And  now  for  our  definition.  The  re- 
ligious sense,  whether  passive  or  active,  is  that 
acknowledgment  of  the  Law  which  compels 
all  creatures  possessing  the  sense  to  work 
or  live  for  objects  or  attainments,  be  they 


36  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

immediate  or  prospective,  in  which  the 
individual  has  no  personal  concern,  save 
perhaps  in  exalted  specimens  of  the  species 
Man.  I  would  beg  you  to  note  this  defini- 
tion, for  unless  we  hold  its  essential  points 
we  shall  often  be  at  variance  and  shall  need 
to  reiterate  its  claims.  The  definition  insists 
that  this  sense,  which  I  call  religious,  plays 
a  great,  if  not  the  chief,  part  in  the  evolution 
of  life,  and  is  fundamental  in  the  develop- 
ment of  man's  obligation  to  live  in  con- 
formity with  the  Law  and  in  the  winning  of 
his  freedom. 

You  will  perceive  that  I  have  deliber- 
ately excluded  from  this  definition  any 
suggestion  of  the  religious  sense  being 
identical  with  the  social  sense.  This  latter 
is  quite  as  real  and  nigh  as  powerful  as  the 
former ;  nor  is  it  easy  to  understand  where 
lies  the  line  of  demarcation  between  them. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  37 

Nevertheless,  the  social  sense  operates  mainly, 
if  not  solely,  in  the  material  interest  of  the 
individuals,  even  if  collectively ;  while  the 
religious  sense  recognizes  the  relation  of  life 
to  the  unknown  Law  which  would  appear 
to  embrace  purposes,  perhaps  immediate, 
perhaps  only  prospective,  of  which  its 
slaves  see  nothing  and  imagine  but  a  little. 
Although  the  social  sense  may  prove  a 
stepping-stone,  or  phase,  in  the  evolution  of 
the  religious  sense,  it  is  not  the  same  thing  : 
for  the  social  sense  is  utilitarian,  the  religious 
is  ideal ;  the  social  is  altruistic,  the  religious  is 
transcendental.  The  social  is  scientific — i.e. 
deals  in  measurable  and  cognizable  facts  ;  the 
religious  is  intangible.  The  religious  deals 
with  old,  yet  ever  abiding,  philosophic  wisdom 
rather  than  with  the  new  knowledge  which 
we  find  so  necessary  in  our  ephemeral 
labours. 


38  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

A  psychologist  may,  if  he  please,  define  the 
religious  sense  as  a  refined  outcome  of  the  social 
law  that  proclaims  charity  to  be  meritorious 
only  in  proportion  to  the  advantage  accruing 
to  society.  If  this  psychologist  can  justify 
his  attempt  to  belittle  our  untutored  sense  of 
the  ideal,  I  am  silenced.  Yet  to  me  the 
Law  which  inspires  this  sense  must  be  greater 
than  man  whom  it  has  produced ;  and  I  fail 
to  see  that  we  come  any  nearer  its  under- 
standing by  attempts  to  prove  it  less  than 
the  ideal  of  its  creature.  Both  social  and 
religious  senses  indeed  partake  of  the  ethical ; 
but  notwithstanding  this  common  holding 
of  the  two,  the  one,  I  say,  is  of  self 
because  limited  by  utilitarian  guarantees, 
while  the  other  is  of  the  eternal  Law.  And 
the  eternal  Law  is  known  and  measured 
in  the  passion  which  some  few  evince  to 
serve  it  even  at  the  cost  of  all  that 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  39 

makes    life    worth    having    in     a    mundane 
sense. 

Although  I  maintain  that  the  social  and  re- 
ligious senses  are  not  identical,  I  believe  that 
they  both  manifest  themselves  through  the 
operation  of  the  same  principle  in  life,  which 
impels  the  individual  on  the  one  hand  to  good 
citizenship,  and  on  the  other  to  a  prophet's 
or  martyr's  death.  That  they  are  not  the 
same  St.  Paul  was  careful  to  teach  ;  that 
they  are  not  the  same  our  science  shall  show 
us.  They  are  no  more  the  same  than  the 
budding,  blossoming,  and  fructification  of 
the  vine  are  the  same,  though  each  such 
aspect  of  life  stands  in  virtue  of  the  same 
impelling  growth.  And  my  purpose  is  to 
show  you  that,  in  studying  the  simpler 
manifestations  of  a  law,  we  may  arrive  at 
a  truer  understanding  of  its  fuller  develop- 
ments. Therefore,  although  I  again  affirm 


40  THE   RELIGIOUS    SENSE 

that  the  social  sense  is  not  identical  with — 
nay,  that  in  some  respects  it  may  appear 
inimical  to — the  religious  sense,  yet  the  under- 
standing of  the  one  will,  by  natural  process, 
lead  to  an  understanding  of  the  other. 
Unless,  once  more,  we  admit  special  creation, 
we  must  know  that  all  life  lives  by  growing, 
and  that,  the  greater  the  wonder  of  its  com- 
plexity, the  stronger  must  the  evidence 
become  that  even  man  lives  only  in  evolution. 

(iv).  I  must  now  give  you  a  brief  suggestion 
as  to  the  headings  of  my  subject,  for  I  think 
it  will  help  you  to  understand  the  simpler 
arguments  if,  at  the  very  beginning,  you 
have  some  hint  of  the  method  of  thought 
by  which  they  will  lead  you. 

In  this  my  first  lecture  I  am  going  to  tell 
you  the  story  of  a  very  simple  form  of  life — 
that  of  the  sponge.  In  it  I  shall  show  you 
a  city  built  by  living  things,  each  of  which, 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  41 

while  building  the  wonderful  structure  and 
sustaining  its  own  needs,  shares  the  life  of 
its  neighbours,  whether  near  or  distant.  I 
shall  further  show  how  each  individual  is 
inspired  by  the  desire  to  attain  that  upon 
which  the  community  is  intent,  although 
immediately  and  personally  unconcerned  in 
its  fulfilment.  Thus  shall  I  argue  that  the 
earliest  indications  of  a  germinal  religion 
in  service  are  revealed  to  us. 

In  my  second  lecture  I  shall  show  you 
where  we  may  find  early  evidence  of 
religion  in  renunciation.  It  is  manifested 
alike  in  the  humblest  of  animal  forms  and 
the  most  perfect  of  flowers,  and  in  its 
expression  of  truth  it  shines  in  beauty.  I 
shall  seek  to  make  clear  to  you  how  life  is 
gifted  not  only  with  a  purpose  beyond  the 
understanding  of  its  servants,  but  is  intent 
upon  the  manifestation,  in  outward  and 


42  THE    RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

visible   sign,   of  the   truth   of  its  inspiration 
to  live  in  accord  with  transcendental  idea. 

In  my  third  lecture  I  shall  advance  more 
evidence  for  allowing  the  religious  sense 
to  rank  as  a  psychical  fact  in  man,  and 
that  as  clearly  distinguished  from  the  instinct 
of  social  obligation.  We  shall  make  enquiry 
into  the  relation  of  the  religious  sense  to 
social  claims.  We  shall,  in  studying  insect 
communities,  realize  how  their  perfect  sub- 
servience to  their  laws  is  accounted  for  by 
an  automatic  and  restricted  religious  sense 
closely  akin  to  social  law.  I  shall  show, 
further,  how,  in  man's  emancipation  from 
the  chains  that,  like  the  laws  of  the  bees, 
bound  his  forgotten  ancestry  to  a  passive 
obedience  necessarily  precluding  the  pos- 
sibility of  sin,  he  has  attained  freedom 
and  power ;  and  how  at  the  same  time, 
and  as  a  condition  of  his  freedom,  he  has 


THE   RELIGION- OF   SERVICE  43 

acquired  the  faculty  of  working  in  opposition 
to  the  law  of  his  being. 

(v).  Now  I  am  going  to  be  very  elementary 
in  my  description  of  the  humblest  forms 
of  life,  because  I  would  have  you  under- 
stand that  their  vitality,  no  less  than  the 
vitality  of  the  most  complex  forms,  depends 
upon  the  idea  in  which  they  exist  rather 
than  upon  their  structure  and  form.  This 
sounds  ominously  like  plunging  into  a 
philosophic  abstraction  at  the  very  moment 
I  am  offering  you  simple  concrete  facts ; 
but  a  few  of  these  facts  will  show  you  at 
once  that  even  their  simplicity  involves  a 
philosophic  explanation.  And  if  we  realize 
how  idea  rules  form,  builds  and  vivifies 
structure,  we  shall  the  more  easily  under- 
stand that  power  over  us  and  all  life 
which  our  religious  sense  of  transcendental 
obligation  proclaims. 


44  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

You  have  all  heard  or  read  of,  and  some 
of  you  have  been  very  near  handling  and 
directly  studying,  that  particle  of  elemental 
protoplasm  which  is  called  an  amoeba.  This 
is,  in  idea  and  in  fact,  almost  the  simplest 
conceivable  manifestation  of  life.  It  is  an 
elemental  cell  in  which  we  can  define  the 
difference  between  life  and  lifeless  matter,  yet 
in  words  that  shall  embrace  all  creation.  The 
properties  of  matter  you  know,  as  distin- 
guished from  life,  are  best  expressed  in  terms 
of  their  physical  attributes,  such  as  gravity, 
electricity,  light,  heat,  etc.  None  of  these 
forces  can  escape  the  law  of  their  interchange 
in  mathematically  measurable  equivalents  ; 
none  can  be  destroyed  or  created,  and  no 
matter  can  escape  their  domination. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  essential  of 
protoplasmic  life  appears  to  be  a  power  of 
holding  in  check  the  physical  forces  that 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  45 

destroy  it  as  soon  as  its  life  departs  and 
leaves  it  mere  matter.  And  herein  we  may 
say  lies  the  secret  of  life :  it  has  power 
over  all  those  forces  and  elements  that  we 
can  measure  in  our  laboratories  and  define 
in  our  text-books  with  absolute  precision. 
More  than  this,  as  every  biologist  must 
admit,  each  individual  element,  whether 
simple  as  an  amoeba  or  complex  as  a  man, 
is  not  only  holding  in  check  chemical 
forces  that  will  destroy  such  element  as 
soon  as  its  vitality  wanes  or  departs,  but  it 
is  actually  at  warfare  with  other  forms  of 
life  that  can  destroy  it  no  less  surely  than 
physical  forces.  And  when  either  amoeba 
or  man  dies,  the  material  forms  which  each 
had  built,  inhabited  and  controlled  are 
assailed  by  myriad  life-forms,  be  they 
bacteria  or  worms,  which  prey  upon  the 
abandoned  garments  of  life. 


46  THE   RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

The  essential  conditions  of  life,  then,  being 
strife  with  physical  forces  and  opposing  life- 
forms,  we  find  that  any  item  of  life  excels 
so  long  as  its  purpose  is  fulfilled  in  the 
work  it  does.  And  growth  is  the  outcome 
of  such  work  and  warfare.  Moreover,  in  an 
individual's  recognition,  passive  or  active,  of 
the  Law's  hidden  purpose  lies  the  religious 
sense.  In  the  failure  to  obey  this  triune 
law  of  warfare,  work,  and  growth,  whether 
we  study  the  moral  nature  of  man  or  the 
lowest  forms  of  life  or  the  intermediate 
means  of  man's  evolution,  we  observe  the 
overcoming  of  the  higher  by  the  lower.  It 
is  the  law  of  Nature  that  he  who  will  not 
work  must  rot ;  that  he  who  will  not  strive 
will  be  enslaved ;  that  he  who  will  not 
seek  increase  shall  impersonate  the  horror 
of  degeneration. 

But  to  return  to  the  amoeba  :   it  consists 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  47 

solely  in  a  particle — the  size  is  of  no 
importance — of  protoplasm.  It  has  no  dis- 
coverable structure,  no  organs,  no  senses. 
Its  shape  is  always  changing,  and  in  its 
changes  it  effects  mbvement,  whether  for 
progression  in  the  water  it  inhabits  or  for 
seizing  morsels  of  food.  From  any  point 
of  its  changing  surface  it  can  thrust  forth 
a  couple  of  lips  to  catch  a  floating  particle. 
The  lips  close  and  form  a  temporary  mouth. 
This  mouth  next  becomes  a  stomach  that 
so  operates  upon  the  food  that  it  separates 
what  it  needs  from  what  it  does  not.  It 
digests  the  former  and  discards  the  latter 
from  any  point  on  its  surface.  And  you 
will  perceive  from  this  description  that  the 
amoeba's  needs  adapt  its  form  for  their 
fulfilment :  its  functions  are  not  dependent 
upon  special  structures,  as  is  mostly  the 
case  with  more  highly  organised  creatures. 


48  THE   RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

But,  besides  this  amoeba,  there  are 
multitudes  of  different  kinds  of  simple  par- 
ticles of  protoplasm  each  having  different 
needs,  according  to  the  different  work  each 
one  is  predestined  to  perform ;  and  it  is  by 
the  work  done,  and  not  by  the  structure, 
that  we  know  and  classify  some  of  them. 
Each,  moreover,  reproduces  its  kind  with 
its  own  functions,  and  never  with  the 
functions  of  another  kind,  although  in 
appearance,  chemical  composition,  and 
mode  of  life  the  two  kinds  may  appear 
identical.  And  herein  we  find  the  essential 
element  in  these  lowly  forms  of  life  as 
well  as  in  the  mighty  of  the  earth  :  each 
item  of  life  is  what  it  is  in  virtue  of  its 
function,  although  to  declare  this  truth  is 
to  declare  that  life  is  what  it  is  in  virtue 
of  an  abstract  idea  to  which  it  owes  its 
existence. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  49 

I  am  deeply  anxious  that  you  should 
understand  the  importance  of  this  function, 
upon  which  depends,  I  say,  the  nature  and 
work  of  any  living  object,  rather  than  upon 
the  structure  produced  by  it  for  the  sake  of 
fulfilling  such  function ;  therefore  I  will  give 
you  further  illustration  of  what  I  mean.  We 
might  examine  the  roots  of,  say,  a  growing 
spike  of  wheat  and  a  bean-shoot  in  the  same 
soil.  Each  rootlet  is  terminated  by  living 
protoplasmic  cells,  structureless  and  identical, 
that  of  the  bean  with  that  of  the  wheat.  Yet 
each  differs  in  this  extraordinary  although 
obviously  essential  fact :  that  the  minute 
servant-cells  of  the  wheat  select  from  the  soil 
flint  for  the  strengthening  of  the  straw,  while 
the  bean's  gleaners  of  its  food  reject  the  flint 
as  unnecessary.  And  I  maintain  that  these 
particles  of  protoplasm  are  virile  in  their 
function  in  virtue  of  the  ideal  needs  of  the 

4 


50  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

plant  which  they  serve,  and  which  has  pro- 
duced them  :  they  are  what  they  are,  not  in 
virtue  of  their  composition,  but  in  virtue  of 
the  work  they  are  able  to  do — that  is,  in 
virtue  of  the  idea  in  which  they  are  thrust 
forth  into  the  soil  to  seek  food  for  their 
masters. 

And  in  like  manner  do  all  particles  of 
protoplasm,  whether  they  live  alone  or  in 
communities,  labour  variously,  not  in  virtue 
of  their  structure,  but  because  of  their 
parental  inheritance  of  an  idea  in  purpose, 
of  a  function  in  attainment.  Look  at  the 
Foraminifera  —  those  multitudinous  shell- 
forms  encasing  microscopical  particles  of 
structureless  protoplasm  that  compose  the 
deep  Atlantic  mud,  and  have  built  up  the 
chalk  cliffs  and  limestones — each  and  all  have 
definite  work,  and  are  true  to  their  inherit- 
ance of  the  idea  or  form  of  shell  they  must 


PLATE  I. 


SPECIMENS    OF    FORAMINIFERA 

a,  amphistegina  Lesscni ;  b,  cornuspira  foliacea  ;  c,  lagena  vulgaris ; 
cf,  rotahaBeccarii  ;  e,  lagena  sulcata  ;  /,  Discorbina.  c  and  /represent 
live  specimens  with  their  pseudopodia  projecting— in  the  latter  from 
the  minute  orifices  with  which  the  shell  is  perforated,  in  the  former 
from  a  large  opening 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  51 

produce.  The  function  of  each  is  to  extract 
the  carbonate  of  lime  dissolved  in  the 
sea,  and  excrete  it  as  a  chalky  covering 
identical  in  shape  to  that  of  its  parents. 
We  have  here  a  diagram  (Plate  I.)  showing 
some  of  these  pretty  forms,  which  are 
among  the  commonest  and  most  beautiful 
of  the  microscope's  objects.  You  will  note 
that  the  form  of  some,  e.g.,  the  discorbina,  is 
identical  with  that  of  the  nautilus  (Plate  VI.) 
or  an  ammonite,  which  rank  as  far  above  the 
Foraminifera  as  man  ranks  above  these  ex- 
quisite molluscs.  Many  of  them  have  minute 
pores,  through  which  their  possessors  thrust 
attenuated  and  extemporised  portions  of  their 
bodies  to  seize  upon  and  absorb  the  food  they 
need.  Others  keep  open  one  end  of  their 
encasing  armour  for  the  same  purpose  ;  and 
although  their  little  bodies  are  all  the  same 
inside,  and  they  all  labour  in  making  an 


52  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

armour  of  the  same  chemical  composition, 
yet  they  inherit,  as  part  of  this  function 
or  idea  of  work,  a  function  and  idea  of 
form. 

Now  I  am  going  to  say  more  about  this 
diversity  of  work  as  we  may  observe  it  in 
other  structureless  particles  of  protoplasm, 
which  labour  together  in  furtherance  of  one 
ultimate  object.  They  live  in  communities 
and  work  in  co-operation,  but  specialize  the 
various  kinds  of  labour  necessary  for  the 
erection  of  a  very  wonderful  and  ordinary 
structure — the  sponge. 

And  in  this,  as  in  every  study  of  life,  we 
take  a  simple  form.  Only  in  understanding 
the  simple  can  we  hope  to  grasp  the 
significance  of  the  complex :  only  thus 
can  we  hope  to  grasp  the  relation  of  the 
abstract  idea  or  principle  to  its  concrete 
manifestation. 


'LATE   II. 


A)    Spongilla  fluviatilis,   enlarged,   showing  crater-like   apertures. 

a,  the  same,  natural  size.     Bi  Diagram  (after  Huxley)  of  the  spongilla's 
waterways   and   ciliated   chambers.      a,  a,   openings   in   outer   wall; 

b,  moat ;  c,  chambers  lined  with  ciliated   cells  ;    d,    egress  from   the 
chambers  ;  e,  outgoing  canals  leading  into  /,   the  crater-like  orifice 


\ 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  53 

(vi).  The  simplest  form  of  the  sponge  for 
our  present  study  is  a  fresh-water  specimen 
known  as  Spongilla  fluviatilis  (Plate  II.).  It 
is  animal,  and  not  vegetable  as  was  formerly 
supposed.  It  is  found  in  green  masses  on  the 
walls  and  banks  of  docks,  canals,  rivers,  or 
on  long-immersed  twigs  and  floating  timber. 
It  has,  like  most  though  not  all  sponges,  a 
skeleton  formed  partly  of  horny  substance 
and  partly  of  flinty  needles.  It  is  the  skeleton 
of  sponges  remaining  after  the  community 
is  dead,  by  which  we  know  its  species.  In 
different  kinds  the  forms  of  skeleton  are  won- 
derfully unlike  one  another  ;  but  the  mode 
of  life  varies  little  in  spite  of  difference  in 
destiny  and  parentage.  For  one  instance,  we 
have  the  common  domestic  sponge — a  dead 
city  built  by  the  living,  its  walls  and  portals 
formed  of  an  elastic  substance  of  wonderful 
tenacity  and  softness.  Another  is  a  specimen 


54  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

called  Venus's  flower-basket  or  Euplectella 
(Plate  III.),  while  a  third,  very  different  again, 
is  known  as  Glass-rope.  Most  of  the  sponges 
are  fixed  as  soon  as  their  childhood  is  past ; 
and  some  (clionce\  attaching  themselves  to 
the  shells  of  molluscs,  bore  holes  through 
the  walls  of  'their  unwilling  hosts.  But, 
whatever  their  form  or  mode  of  life,  each 
kind  of  sponge  is  a  colony  of  innumerable 
individuals  working  together  towards  a 
common  object,  in  which  they  are  uncon- 
sciously concerned  :  not  all  doing  the  same 
work,  but  specializing  in  mutual  service  in 
order  that  the  purpose  in  the  life  of  each 
and  all  may  be  the  better  attained. 

The  spongilla,  then,  consists  of  skeleton 
and  a  live  substance  which  may  be  spoken 
of  as  the  sponge-flesh.  It  is  this  that  we 
must  study.  It  consists  of  multitudinous 
cells,  each  of  which  possesses  a  certain 


PLATE  III. 


VENUSS 
FLOWER-BASKET 

(Euplectella 
aspergillum) 


THE  RELIGION   OF  SERVICE  55 

amount  of  individuality,  although  sharing 
with  its  myriad  brethren  in  a  common 
purpose.  We  have  here  (Plate  II.)  a 
diagram  of  the  city  built  by  these  little 
bodies,  which  we  will  call  briefly  the  sponge  - 
sarcodes.  We  find  an  outside  wall  com- 
posed of  these  living  creatures,  each  of  which 
is  indistinguishable,  in  simplicity  of  function 
and  absence  of  structure,  from  an  amoeba. 
They  are  arranged  in  close  order  and  contact, 
each  spending  its  life  in  building,  strengthen- 
ing and  enlarging  the  solid  substance  upon 
which  it  sits ;  and,  curious  as  it  must  seem 
to  us  whose  great  desire  in  our  work  is  to 
be  quit  of  it,  the  masonry  and  its  masons 
never  part  during  life.  In  this  outer  wall 
or  bulwark  are  many  openings,  which,  in 
some  kinds  of  sponge  without  skeletons,  open 
and  close  as  need  requires.  These  openings 
lead  into  a  great  moat  surrounding  the 


56  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

citadel.  To  the  moat  finds  access,  through 
the  gates  in  the  outer  wall,  the  water  in 
which  are  carried  the  food  and  building- 
supplies  necessary  to  the  city's  work.  How- 
ever great  may  be  the  rush  of  water  outside, 
within  this  great  moat  or  harbour  all  is 
comparatively  still.  The  particles  of  food— 
or  trading  vessels,  shall  I  call  them? — are 
gently  carried  into  the  deep  waterways  of 
the  interior.  But  how  are  they  carried 
inwards?  In  the  ramparts  of  the  citadel 
itself,  which  form  the  inner  confines  of  the 
moat,  are  likewise  many  openings,  through 
which  currents  of  water,  with  the  building 
material  they  carry,  are  kept  moving,  so 
that  all  the  deep  streets  and  alleys,  caverns 
and  cellars,  have  their  share  of  good  things. 
All  the  walls  are  crowded  with  these  living 
sarcodes,  within  and  without.  And  here 
and  there,  especially  in  the  passages  leading 


.       v,:.";  '      ••    X:     - 

OF  THE 

.    UNIVERSITY 

y 

.THE   RELIGION   OF  SERVICE  57 

directly  inwards  from  the  moat,  are  found 
little  chambers,  through  which  each  ingoing 
stream  passes.  These  I  would  have  you 
particularly  note  :  they  are  lined  also  with 
the  sponge-sarcodes,  though  here  these  differ 
from  the  mason-cells  in  one  respect.  Each 
has  thrust  from  its  free  surface  a  long 
lash  or  cilia,  as  it  is  called,  which  sweeps 
the  water  always  in  one  direction.  Thus, 
together  with  its  fellows,  it  forms  a  broom- 
like  lining  to  the  chamber,  each  bristle  being 
alive  and  intent  upon  its  special  duty  of 
sweeping  inwards,  in  co-operation  with  its 
neighbours,  supplies  to  the  workers  within. 
Thus  rivers  are  kept  flowing  inwards  from 
the  still  harbour,  bearing  in  their  waters 
the  food. 

And  the  sweeping  members  of  the  com- 
munity take  from  the  water  all  they  need, 
and  pass  it  onwards,  still  rich  in  supply, 


58  THE  RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

to     their     mates,     busy    upon     other    tasks 
within. 

In  the  depths  of  the  sponge  the  little 
streams  of  water  give  up  what  the  sponge 
needs,  and  take  in  exchange  manufactures 
that,  though  refuse  from  the  sponge's  point 
of  view,  are  highly  prized  by  all  the  indi- 
viduals and  cities  of  the  vegetable  kingdom. 
These  products  are  carbonic  acid  and 
nitrogen  compounds  similar  to  those  we  use 
in  our  gardens  as  manure ;  and  without 
these  by-products  of  the  animal,  as  you 
know,  the  vegetables  could  not  live,  just  as, 
unless  these  last  threw  off  the  oxygen  from 
the  carbonic  acid  which  they  seize  upon 
for  its  carbon,  the  animals  would  die.  And 
from  the  sponge's  deep  recesses  and  streets 
the  little  streams  are  gathered  together  again 
into  one  large  channel,  which  ultimately,  like 
a  great  covered  canal,  carries  the  waters 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  59 

through  the  outer  ramparts,  moat,  and  bul- 
warks into  the  flowing  water  of  the  unknown 
river. 

And  this  is  the  plan  upon  which  all 
sponge-cities  work,  however  varied  the  style 
of  architecture,  or  however  different  the 
materials  used.  In  all  of  them  the  citizens 
are  living  and  intent  upon  their  particular 
duties.  Some  supply  the  food,  some  build  ; 
and  others  rest  while  awaiting  their  time 
of  service  to  the  law  in  its  needs  of  their 
offspring.  And  the  builders  labour  differently 
according  to  the  needs  of  the  whole  city. 
Thus  some  in  the  spongilla  manufacture 
horny  stuff;  and  some  make  the  flinty  needles 
where  stronger  support  is  needed.  In  the 
common  sponge  no  flinty  or  chalky  skeleton 
is  made  except  at  the  points  where  its 
attachment  needs  greater  strength  of  frame. 
Then  the  architecture  varies  more  with  the 


60  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

sponge's  parentage  than  does  that  of  us 
men  with  our  social  class.  Some  of  us  live 
in  palaces,  some  in  pigstyes ;  yet  we  are  all 
men,  and  capable  of  living  in  either,  though 
we  judge  one  another  by  the  mere  accident 
of  social  rank.  But  in  the  sponge-sarcode 
there  is  no  interchange  of  style  or  rank, 
and  the  spongilla  could  not  build  a  Venus's 
basket.  Each  sponge  is  formed  in  obedience 
to  the  absolutely  rigid  law  of  its  form  :  from 
which  law  there  is  no  departure,  although 
the  law  may  perhaps,  from  time  to  time, 
change  the  demand  it  makes  upon  its 
servants. 

Now  I  must  beg  of  you  to  note  care- 
fully in  your  minds  a  very  obvious  fact, 
and  refrain  from  discounting  the  depth  of 
its  significance  because  of  its  superficial 
obviousness.  It  is  this :  each  of  these 
sponge-sarcodes  is  intent  upon  its  function. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  61 

Indeed,  all  life  depends  upon  the  fact  of 
its  being  intent,  of  its  intending  something, 
whether  conscious  of  the  fact  or  not.  Life 
in  perfection  is  perfection  in  work ;  and 
work  is  divine  so  far  as  it  thrives  in  obedience 
to  the  law  of  its  inspiration  :  though  its  office 
is  now  in  service  of  self,  now  in  service  of 
society,  now  in  worship  of  a  transcendental 
ideal.  The  little  sponge-sarcode's  intent  is 
various.  First  it  has  its  own  needs  to 
supply,  for  without  doing  so  it  could  not 
fulfil  its  further  service.  Secondly,  some 
show  a  definite  function  of  service  to  their 
fellows  :  I  refer  to  the  sweepers.  And  thirdly, 
some,  while  feeding  themselves,  and  serving 
themselves  and  their  neighbours  by  building 
walls  or  firmly  cementing  their  foundations 
to  the  rock,  further  fulfil  the  amazing  function 
of  building  a  city  of  an  unconsidered  yet 
determinate  style  of /architecture,  and  for  the 


62  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

fulfilling  of  an  unknown  purpose.  Finally, 
each  and  all  are  necessary  to  the  subsistence 
of  a  kingdom  of  which  they  have  never 
heard,  although  this  kingdom  is  also  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  them.  And  each  and 
all  of  these  many  functions  are  performed 
in  obedience,  unconscious  and  involuntary, 
to  the  great  unknown  Law. 

Now,  as  soon  as  we  realize  the  fact 
that  this  obedience  in  service  to  the  Law  is 
accountable  for  the  little  sponge-sarcode's  life 
and  function,  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face 
with  the  lowliest  indications  of  religious  sense 
— the  sense  of  obligation  to  obey>  though  the 
injunctions  be  those  of  service  to  others  no 
less  than  to  self;  though  they  enjoin  recog- 
nition of  some  idea  or  law  in  which  even  the 
community  is  but  remotely  concerned,  yet 
which  idea  or  law  enwraps  the  vast  kingdoms 
of  animal  and  vegetable  in  a  common  need 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  63 

of  mutual  service.  Here,  unless  I  much 
mistake  you,  I  have  given  you  something 
to  think  about ;  and  I  do  not  believe,  if 
you  allow  your  imaginations  free  play  (and 
the  imagination  is  the  mother  of  thought 
and  knowledge),  you  will  ever  reach  the 
bottom  of  the  well  from  which  I  have  set 
you  drawing  water.  If  I  enabled  you  to 
reach  a  definite  conclusion  as  to  the  relation 
of  manifested  life  to  the  law  that  has  pro- 
duced it,  with  the  object  of  summing  up 
the  whole  mystery  in  a  definition,  I  should 
be  insulting  your  intellects  in  an  attempt  to 
confine  infinity  within  the  bounds  of  finite 
definitiveness.  "  Le  Dieu  defini  est  le  dieu 
fini,"  exclaimed  the  mystic  in  repudia- 
tion of  dogmatic  theology  ;  and  we,  rightly 
regarding  every  obscurity  as  fresh  field  for 
the  acquisition  of  knowledge,  shall  ever 
find  that  each  new  fact  we  gain  will  give 


64  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

us  further  insight  into  the  deeps  of  the  un- 
known. Our  search  is  for  knowledge  of  the 
living  truth :  not  for  incrusting  definitions, 
which  may  be  helpful  weapons  in  the  war- 
fare with  ignorance,  but  which  often  make 
harder  the  acquisition  of  wisdom. 

(vii).  Our  insight  into  the  life  of  the  sponge- 
city,  with  its  countless  millions  of  inhabitants, 
brings  us  to  many  questions  that  are  in- 
separable from  my  main  purpose  in  address- 
ing you ;  and  some  of  these  I  shall  have 
to  discuss,  more  especially  those  which 
present  difficulties  or  which  appear  to  oppose 
the  trend  of  my  argument.  At  the  moment 
I  shall  but  seek  to  answer  one  question  that 
has  probably  arisen  in  your  minds  already, 
or  that  would,  I  trust,  do  so  when  you  came 
to  weigh  my  words  hereafter.  You  will  ask 
me  whether  the  very  basis  of  such  an  expres- 
sion as  the  religious  sense  is  not  an  admission 


THE  RELIGION   OF  SERVICE          65 

of  consciousness  and  responsibility ;  and, 
further,  whether  these  properties  are  not 
inseparable  from  self-consciousness  and  in- 
dividuality. Now  I  am  glad  to  think  that 
you  put  such  question  to  me,  because  it  is 
absolutely  just,  and  because  there  is  only 
one  answer  to  give  you — namely,  one  of 
affirmation.  But  such  an  answer  does  not 
imply  objection  to  my  claim  that  we  find 
indications  of  the  religious  sense  throughout 
creation,  and  so  definitely  suggested  in  the 
sponge-sarcodes.  Yet  I  must  immediately 
justify  this  answer  in  some  measure,  though 
the  argument  will  run  through  the  other 
lectures ;  or,  if  I  cannot  yet  justify  it,  I  will 
set  you  to  asking  the  question  in  terms  so 
much  larger  than  you  had  thought  neces- 
sary that  you  will  go  away  with  a  bigger 
hope  in  your  hearts  of  finding  an  answer 
that  shall  be  more  than  a  phrase  or  a 

5 


66  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

definition,   more   even   than   a   text-book   or 
a  creed. 

You  may  think  that  I  am  assuming  too 
much  in  suggesting  individuality  to  these 
sponge-sarcodes — that  practically  I  am  at- 
tributing to  them  consciousness  and  what 
we  may  call,  for  lack  of  more  definite 
words,  the  possession  of  a  soul ;  and  I  admit 
the  claim,  if  you  will  remember  that  I  do 
not  believe  in  special  creation,  and  that  I 
do  believe  that  the  evolution  of  mighty 
things  from  small  beginnings  has  come 
about  precisely  in  virtue  of  the  possibility, 
dormant  yet  germinal  within  them,  to  do  so, 
This  is  a  big  conception  ;  and  we  cannot 
get  away  from  its  reality,  whatever  our  line 
of  study  or  bent  of  mind.  Be  we  scientists 
or  theologians,  materialists  or  idealists,  this 
heroic  fact — of  evolution  in  virtue  of  pro- 
spective possibility — remains.  And  all  of 


THE   RELIGION  OF  SERVICE  67 

us  must  ask,  Whence  this  possibility? 
Whence  the  original  germ  of  our  evolution  ? 
Each  of  us  must  admit  that  the  answer  is 
hid  from  us  in  the  mystery  of  the  unknown 
Law.  Some  will  be  content  to  ask  no  further, 
will  be  content  to  admit  that  we  cannot  tell, 
will  be  content  to  sleep  again  and  call  our 
sleep  the  philosophic  enjoyment  of  life.  But 
others,  I  think,  will  live  their  lives  passion- 
ately discontent  with  any  semblance  of  in- 
tellectual ease,  and  will  pursue  the  question 
of  questions  from  point  to  point,  knowing 
that  science  alone  will  not  serve — that  true 
living  and  pure  thoughts,  the  trust  of  ideals 
and  the  relinquishment  of  self-service,  can 
alone  bring  us  nearer  to  that  wisdom  and 
peace  which  lie  beyond  all  knowledge  and 
science  and  philosophy.  All  thought,  like 
all  great  deeds  in  the  world's  history, 
has  arisen  from  discontent  with  present 


68  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

limitations — from  a  passion  to  further  the 
spirit  of  growth  in  betterment.  This  spirit  is 
the  birthright  of  every  man,  woman,  and  child, 
because  it  is  the  essential  condition  of  that 
life  which  has  ever  been  evolving  towards 
some  unknown  destiny  in  obedience  to  its 
parental  law. 

Even  the  religious  sense,  even  man's  soul 
itself,  has  been  evolved  from  primordial 
beginnings :  and  the  virtue  of  the  tree  is 
the  same  as  the  virtue  of  the  budding 
cotyledons.  If  we  can  more  simply  know 
what  life  means  by  studying  the  first  signs 
of  life  in  the  germinating  seed,  we  may 
likewise  learn  something  of  the  nature  of 
the  religious  sense  and  the  soul  possess- 
ing it  by  watching  it  as  it  buds  in  the 
sponge. 

Such  as  will  now  accuse  me  of  anthropo- 
morphism in  finding  the  rudiments  of  ethical 


THE   RELIGION   OF  SERVICE  69 

law  in  a  sponge,  I  will  pray  to  offer  me 
other  means  of  investigation  than  the  an- 
thropomorphic. We  can  judge  of  the  nature 
of  God  only  by  the  human  intellect's  judg- 
ment of  the  nature  of  man  and  belief  in 
what  he  might  be :  we  can  judge  of  the 
nature  of  a  sponge-sarcode  only  by  our 
knowledge  of  life  in  ourselves,  and  by 
perception  of  the  fact  that  life  is  the  same 
in  its  essential  attributes  throughout  all 
creation.  The  only  differences  are  those  of 
degree.  Indeed,  recent  scientific  work  all 
tends  to  justify  this  anthropomorphism. 
Weissmann's  investigation  of  the  laws  of 
genesis  and  death  are  studied  in  the  very 
humblest  forms  of  life  ;  while  the  researches 
of  Galton  on  the  inheritance  of  genius  have 
found  their  scientific  exposition  in  the 
experiments  of  Mendel  in  the  production 
of  variation  in  peas.  Moreover,  the  converse 


70  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

is  equally  true.  Buffon  argued  that  "  to 
understand  what  had  taken  place  in  the 
past,  or  what  will  happen  in  the  future, 
we  have  but  to  observe  what  is  going  on 
in  the  present."  This  dictum,  upon  which 
modern  geology  is  based,  is  in  all  proba- 
bility an  equally  true  guide  to  the  laws  that 
have  necessitated  our  life  in  its  evolution. 

In  the  study  of  life,  as  appears  to  me, 
we  must  either  be  anthropomorphic  or  fall 
back  upon  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  as 
a  relation  of  scientific  facts.  To  find  the 
same  laws  of  heredity  and  variation  in  the 
races  of  peas  and  the  races  of  men ;  to 
find  the  same  laws  of  feeding,  working, 
resting ;  the  same  laws  of  parentage  and 
bringing  forth  ;  the  same  laws  of  desiring 
life  for  unknown  purposes — of  compulsory 
dying  in  the  midst  of  good  things  we  seem 
to  understand  ; — to  find  these  same  laws,  I 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  71 

say,  throughout  all  life  should  bid  us  pause 
before  we  scoff  at  finding  that  the  intent  of 
service  to  fellow  and  obedience  to  unknown 
law  in  the  sponges  is  germinal  of  the  social 
and  religious  sense  in  man.  Our  life  in  its 
mortality  may  truly  be  but  an  adumbration 
of  that  full  shining  of  the  eternal  life  which, 
because  we  possess  a  measure  of  it,  we  are 
able  to  imagine  in  its  beauty  :  yet  is  this 
our  shadowed  life  brilliant  in  contrast  with 
the  lightless  life  of  the  citizens  of  the 
sponge.  Correspondingly,  seeing  that  our 
own  religious  sense  is  accounted  for  only  by 
an  instinctive  belief  in  a  possible  perfection, 
the  reality  of  which  is  not  weakened  by 
the  fact  that  few  or  no  men  have  attained 
it,  I  see  no  reason  why  we  should  deny 
a  humble  form  of  life,  not  differing  in 
essence  from  our  own,  the  rudiments  of  a 
religious  sense.  The  fact  that  man  has 


72  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

/ 

gained  some  power  of  guiding  his  life  by  the 
light  of  the  Law,  while  the  sponge-individual 
obeys  solely  because  it  cannot  do  otherwise, 
is  no  argument  against  the  same  inspiration 
being  accountable  for  both  forms  of  life. 

Shall  we  then  dare  to  speak  of  the  soul 
of  a  sponge-sarcode  ? 

Yes,  not  only  shall  we  dare,  but,  I  think, 
we  must  so  speak  ;  for  only  upon  the  sup- 
position that  it  possesses  characteristics  which 
we  know  to  be  essential  in  ourselves  can 
we  account  for  its  performance  of  duty  and 
obedience  to  the  eternal  law  of  its  being. 
Only  upon  the  supposition  that  its  essential 
excellence  is  one  with  the  mystic  force  that 
has  brought  ourselves  into  being  and  makes 
us  labour  can  we  have  knowledge  of  the 
great  unknown  ocean :  of  that  ocean  in 
whose  very  bosom  we  lie,  unconscious  of 
its  service  to  us  as  the  spongilla  of  the 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  73 

river,  and  thinking  that,  because  this  ocean 
that  upholds  us  is  unseen,  it  is  beyond  our 
immediate  and  personal  welfare.  Only  so 
can  we  perceive  our  brotherhood  with  a 
sponge-sarcode,  and  understand  that,  though 
our  excellence  of  work  be  higher,  we  share 
with  it  the  power  of  inheritance  and 
of  bequeathing,  the  power  of  doing  what 
we  can,  the  power  of  obeying  what  we 
must. 

And  yet  there  is  one  great  difference, 
though,  I  think,  of  degree  rather  than  of 
kind :  else  we  are  created  on  a  different 
plan  from  the  great  brotherhood  with 
which  we  share  the  essence  of  life's  law. 
And  this  difference  is  one  which  I  shall 
have  constant  need  of  referring  to :  it  is 
this — that  the  sponge-sarcode  obeys  because 
it  must,  and  with  neither  understanding  of 
the  purpose  in  its  life  nor  faculty  of  acting 


74  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

contrarily  to  the  law  of  its  being.  Thus 
are  virtue  and  vice  alike  excluded  from 
its  social  and  personal  existence. 

On  the  other  hand,  man — though  he  too 
lives  in  virtue  of  an  inheritance  whose 
dictates  he  must  obey,  because  his  parents 
have  ever,  through  the  countless  ages,  obeyed 
them — has  choice,  in  such  directions  as 
his  faculties  have  led  him  to  understand,  of 
doing  or  refraining  from  doing,  in  furtherance 
of  or  in  frustration  of  the  essential  Law 
of  his  and  the  sponge-sarcode's  being.  Of 
man's  freedom  I  shall  say  more  in  my  third 
lecture. 

And  when  this  admission  of  the  distinction 
between  man's  soul  and  the  sponge-sarcode's 
is  realized,  we  find  that  man  is  so  very 
different  from  his  little  brother  that  he  is 
inclined  to  claim  that  the  very  fact  of  his 
riches  as  contrasted  with  his  brother's  poverty 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  75 

implies  a  radical  disparity.  The  difference 
is  there,  though  it  is  one  of  degree  rather 
than  of  kind.  That  our  very  will-power, 
like  our  anatomy  and  physiology,  like  our 
faculty  of  memory  and  power  of  love,  has 
had  beginnings  so  small  that  we  cannot 
detect  how  or  where  it  first  became  manifest, 
is  no  argument  against  the  reality  of  its 
present  strength  and  prospective  dignity. 
No  oak-tree  is  belittled  when  we  realize 
that  it  grew  to  be  what  it  is  only  because 
the  riches  of  its  fruitful  strength  lay  dormant 
in  the  cheap  acorn's  heart. 

Yes,  each  individual  sponge-sarcode  has 
a  soul  if  we  have  a  soul  ;  and  every  bird, 
beast,  and  fish — nay,  every  loathly  reptile 
and  insect,  every  parasite,  every  cannibal, 
even  when  cultured  as  only  the  parasites  and 
cannibals  of  our  modern  society  can  be — has 
a  soul :  which  soul  consists  in  its  possession 


76  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

of  a  sense  of  the  essential  Law  that  has 
brought  it  into  being.  But,  again,  there  is 
a  difference.  Man's  soul  is  his  own,  and 
is  thus  personal ;  and  he,  having  attained 
self-consciousness  and  freedom  to  think  and 
to  do,  has  become  accountable  to  the  Law 
and  to  his  fellow  men  for  his  upright  living 
and  growing.  But  the  sponge-sarcode's 
little  soul,  full  of  work  and  obedience,  is 
different  from  man's  in  this,  that  it  is  not 
its  own,  is  not  personal,  is  not  accountable 
for  its  life  or  its  works.  Man's  soul  is  in 
part  his  own ;  the  sarcode's  soul  is  only 
God's. 

I  have  now  given  you  enough  to  think 
about  for  one  lecture,  and  I  beg  you  to 
give  the  facts  I  have  put  before  you  some 
deep  and  honest  labour ;  for  in  my  next 
lecture  I  shall  have  more  to  tell  you  about 
the  revelations  of  this  mighty  Law  in  whose 


THE   RELIGION   OF   SERVICE  77 

motherhood  we  live,  and  in  the  realization 
of  whose  right  to  demand  our  service  and 
reverence  we  perceive  the  development  of 
the  religious  sense.  I  shall  hope  that,  when 
we  are  looking  upon  the  religion  of  re- 
nunciation and  the  mystery  of  beauty,  you 
will  bear  in  mind  the  life-story  of  the  sponge 
and  its  religion  of  service.  For  my  argument 
will  never  go  far  from  it. 


The  Religion  of  Renunciation 


79 


II 

THE  RELIGION  OF  RENUNCIATION 

WE  are  so  habitually  induced  in  our 
struggle  with  mundane  matters  to  set  aside 
our  aspirations,  that  our  minds  are  not  at 
every  moment  in  fit  condition  for  the  higher 
thinking.  The  hope  and  fulfilment  of  life 
ultimately  depend  upon  our  hunger.  Yet, 
though  learning  is  as  necessary  to  the  soul 
of  man  as  fat  is  a  necessity  in  his  diet, 
neither  body  nor  mind  lie  under  obligation 
to  grow  corpulent.  By  no  means  the  least 
of  the  barriers  we  erect  between  ourselves 
and  wisdom  is  intellectual  surfeit,  or,  as 
Bacon  calls  it,  "  exuberance  of  knowledge." 
8'  6 


82  THE  RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

Overfeeding  results  in  slackened  zeal  as 
surely  as  perennial  hunger  starves  hope. 
Many  of  us  are  suffering  from  one  or  other 
of  these  disadvantages,  and  all  weary  at 
times  with  contending  for  the  needful.  We 
cannot  at  every  moment  find  our  minds  and 
hearts  at  their  best  for  deep  thinking. 
As  the  things  we  are  now  dealing  with 
demand,  I  think,  the  best  that  is  in  us, 
untrammelled  either  by  surfeits  of  learning 
that  prejudice  or  by  a  sickly  starvation  that 
rejects  good  food,  we  must  be  sure  that 
we  are  attuned  to  our  subject,  so  that  no 
discords  break  into  the  order  of  our  work. 
Consequently,  before  proceeding  to  the  im- 
mediate subject  of  this  lecture,  I  will  recount 
the  more  important  conclusions  arrived  at 
in  the  first. 

(i).  My  first  lecture  dealt  with  the  obedi- 
ence of  all   life  to   a   Law  transcending  the 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    83 

immediate  needs  of  individuals,  or  families  of 
individuals ;  and  we  found,  in  the  unconscious 
recognition  of  obligation  to  the  unknown, 
some  elemental  suggestion  of  the  religious 
sense.  If  it  were  objected  that  this  sense 
cannot  be  considered  as  such  because  it  is 
purely  involuntary  and  unconscious,  then  I 
claimed  that  not  one  of  our  specially  human 
faculties  have  had  elemental  origin.  Con- 
sider for  a  moment  an  illustration  of  what  I 
mean.  The  eye  of  a  codfish  is  fundamentally 
the  same  organ  as  that  of  a  great  painter, 
and  the  sense  of  sight  must  be  the  same  in 
both  of  them  ;  but  we  do  not  argue,  because 
the  fish  cannot  see  the  glories  which  a  Turner 
transfers  to  his  canvas,  that  the  faculty  of 
seeing  is  not  the  same  in  both.  We  do  not 
say  that  the  human  eye  and  its  mental 
equivalent  could  not  possibly  have  evolved 
from  similar  or  even  simpler  beginnings. 


84  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

Correspondingly,  there  is  no  reason  why  we 
should  not  study  the  earliest  beginnings  of  a 
painter's  power  of  vision,  and  of  its  intel- 
lectual counterpart,  imaginative  invention,  in 
the  simplest  of  fish.  We  may  even  be 
compelled  to  assume  that  an  amoeba  or 
sponge-sarcode  must  also  have  the  elements 
of  seeing  in  its  nature,  though  no  part  of  its 
body  has  been  specially  reserved  for  this 
function,  any  more  than  definite  structure 
has  been  elaborated  for  mouth  or  stomach. 
Similarly,  the  most  exalted  development  of 
the  religious  sense  may  have  taken  beginning 
in  such  a  simplicity  of  obedience  to  natural 
law  that  we  are  unwilling  to  apply  to  it  the 
word  religious. 

Yet  I  find  objections  assailing  me  from 
two  quarters.  Those  of  you  whose  education 
or  natural  bent  inclines  you  to  accept 
scriptural  revelation  as  the  final  appeal  will 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    85 

quarrel   with    me   for    discovering    seed-like 
beginnings  of  divine  grace  in  the  grass  of  the 
field  or  in  the  wonders  of  the  ocean.     You 
will   think   that   I    am   degrading    the   most 
exalted   of   our    inheritances   from    God    to 
mere  attributes  which  all  flesh  and  all  herbs 
acquire  without  consciousness  or  aspirational 
effort      But  for    my    part    I    do    not    think 
we   belittle  the  "  greatest  among  herbs "   in 
showing  that  it  has  grown  from  a  "  mustard 
seed,"  nor  its  virtues  by  saying  that,  in  their 
miraculous  beginning,  they  took  form  only  in 
a  possibility  of  prospective  attainment.     And 
I    believe,  if  any  among   you  do  object  in 
this    wise,    you   will    ultimately   admit    that 
the  facts   I   am  offering  you  have  enlarged 
your   conception   of   the   divine   power   that 
is   in  every  man   for  justifying   the  method 
of  his  creation. 

On    the    other    hand,    those    among    you 


86  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

whose   tastes  and   studies   lie  in  the  pursuit 
of  knowledge,  and  who  thus  incline  to  refuse 
all    food   that   is   other  than   fact,   you,  who 
are  students  of  science  rather  than  of  philo- 
sophy  or   theology,   will    wonder    that    I,   a 
man     presumably     of     scientific     education, 
should  be  concerned  to  find,  ranged  through- 
out   the     wide    scale    of    evolution,    mental 
attributes  which  you  consider  to  be  the  mere 
outcome   of    social    expediency,   or    perhaps 
as   but   remnants    of    decaying    superstition. 
But  you  scientists,  too,  are  easily  answered 
for  if  we  may   not   suppose  that   the  possi- 
bilities of  all  human  faculties,  good  or  bad, 
intellectual  or  emotional,  exist   in  the  lower 
forms  of  life   from   which  you  say  we  have 
evolved,   then,  by   this   failure  to  admit  my 
claim,   you    are    sanctioning   the    heresy   (to 
you  as   great   as   that   of    the    philosopher's 
stone)  of  special  creation.     You  have  but  two 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION     87 

alternatives :  if  you  admit  special  creation  as 
even  a  part  factor  in  the  evolution  of  man, 
you  must  listen  to  the  words  of  the  Scriptures 
in  explanation  of  many  natural  facts  ;  if  you 
repudiate  a  special  creation,  as  I,  for  my 
part,  think  you  are  bound  to  do,  you  will  be 
compelled,  before  I  have  finished  my  argu- 
ment, to  allow  that  it  is  not  the  less  scientific 
that  it  discusses  the  religious  sense  as  one 
of  the  mighty  human  attributes. 

I  suspect  you  scientific  men  will  readily 
admit  the  argument  drawn  from  the 
similarity  of  a  fish's  and  a  great  painter's 
eyes,  because  you  do  not  question  the  reality 
of  the  human  faculty  of  seeing.  But  you 
will — perhaps  quite  fairly — think  that  I  am 
taking  for  granted  too  readily  the  religious 
sense  as  a  definite  function  or  attribute  of 
man ;  you  may  affirm  that  a  major  premise 
in  my  syllogism  is  at  fault.  I  have  already 


88  THE  RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

touched  upon  this  point ;  but  just  now, 
before  we  have  more  definite  facts  in  hand 
— of  which  I  have  plenty  to  offer  you — I 
shall  refrain  from  speaking  fully  of  this 
most  important  point  in  my  argument  until 
the  opening  of  my  third  lecture.  But 
although  I  may  not  yet  have  persuaded 
you  that  this  religious  sense  takes  vital  part 
in  our  life,  I  may  reiterate  what  I  mean 
by  it,  and  this  in  terms  somewhat  fuller 
than  I  have  yet  employed. 

The  sense  I  speak  of  is  religious  because 
it  implies  a  union  between  life  in  all  its 
forms  and  the  Unknown.  And  it  is  more  : 
it  is  ethical  because  it  implies  obligation, 
whether  active  or  passive,  conscious  or  un- 
conscious, to  the  unknown  origin  of  life's 
being. 

The  sense  may  not  be  the  less  real  that 
its  possessor  is  unconscious  of  its  behests. 


THE  RELIGION  OF   RENUNCIATION     89 

The   sense   of  sight,    I   have  just  argued,  is 

possessed   alike   by   fish   and   man ;  but   the 

• 

codfish   cannot   be  conscious  of  his  gift,  still 

less  has  any  knowledge  of  obligation  towards 
it  or  privilege  in  its  possession,  such  as  are 
possessed  by  a  Titian  or  a  Turner.  So  may 
a  sense,  such  as  that  of  obligation  to  the  Law, 
be  strong  in  its  influence  upon  a  citizen  of 
the  sponge-city,  although  the  little  structure- 
less mass  of  protoplasm  be  utterly  uncon- 
scious of  its  behests  and  impellings.  As  it 
is  chained  to  the  law  of  its  being,  so  it  obeys 
the  law  from  an  abiding  sense  of  such  obliga- 
tion. As  this  religious  sense  becomes  more 
definitely  manifested,  so  it  begins  to  partake 
of  an  ethical  equivalent.  I  have  shown  you 
how  in  the  lowest  forms  of  life  the  indi- 
viduals serve  at  once  their  own  needs  and 
the  law  which  has  need  of  them  for  purposes 
beyond  their  own  welfare ;  and  in  higher 


90  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

forms,  long  before  consciousness  of  moral 
obligation  is  attained  in  man,  we  actually 
find  willing,  though  perhaps  still  unconscious, 
sacrifice  of  personal  interests  and  needs  in 
the  furtherance  of  the  unknown  Law's  deep 
purposes.  And  in  man  I  claim  that  there 
is  even  greater  possibility  of  manifesting  the 
Law  in  which  all  life  lives,  moves,  and  has 
its  being ;  and  that  in  virtue  of  his  conscious 
power,  of  his  faculty  of  choice,  he  throws  in 
his  lot  either  with  the  Law  which  has  given 
him  freedom  or  with  his  own  personal 
desires  and  needs  which  chain  and  im- 
prison him. 

Thus  there  are  three  standpoints  in  the 
evolution  of  obligation  as  vital  power- 
Egoism,  Altruism,  Transcendentalism.  We 
find  ourselves  first  recognizing  the  fact  that 
all  forms  of  life  live  in  the  pursuit  of  their 
personal  needs,  although  none  the  less  in 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    91 

obedience  to  a  law  which  has  need  of  them, 
or  it  would  not  have  produced  them  :  this 
is  Egoism,  though  expressed  in  terms  of 
the  transcendental.  And  we  may  take 
as  the  simplest  examples  of  self-contained 
and  self-sufficient  life  the  beautiful  Forami- 
nifera  of  which  I  told  you  in  my  former 
lecture. 

From  the  second  standpoint  we  shall  find 
ourselves  admitting  that  the  service  of 
others  is  essential  in  all  social  communities 
— even  when  they  are  composed  of  such 
lowly  individuals  as  the  builders  of  the 
sponge.  Here  we  find  that  Altruism  (to  use 
Comte's  word)  is  as  much  a  property  of 
the  humble  as  of  the  exalted,  though  it  is 
made  the  basis  of  that  philosopher's  message 
of  religion  to  those  who  can  see  no  further 
than  their  eyes  instruct  them.  But  further, 
and  still  in  examination  of  this  second 


92  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

standpoint,  I  shall  indicate  in  this  lecture 
that  actual  sacrifice  of  personal  interest  is 
found  throughout  life,  although  those  who 
involuntarily  give  up  their  own  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  the  Law  do  not  suffer  in  the  process. 
This  may  still  be  no  more  than  rigid, 
mundane  altruism  ;  but  it  indubitably  shares 
in  the  transcendental,  and  thereby  becomes 
extra-mundane  charity,  as  soon  as  it  can  be 
proved  germinal  of  evolutionary  fruitfulness. 

Thus  we  reach  our  third  standpoint  of 
Transcendentalism,  whence  we  survey  this 
same  force  of  religious  obligation  in  man. 
But  its  aspect  is  now  changed.  For  man, 
having  acquired  some  understanding  of  the 
Law,  experiences  personal  obligation  to  suffer 
if  need  be,  that  its  high  behests,  rather  than 
his  own  needs  and  delights,  be  satisfied. 
Man  has  become,  in  measure  great  or  small, 
a  conscious  partaker  in  the  mighty  work 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION     93 

of  the  eternal,  though  its  purposes  are  un- 
known to  him  ;  and,  in  this  high  responsi- 
bility and  conscious  sharing  in  the  building 
of  the  eternal  city,  he  attains  freedom,  even 
though  the  glories  of  the  city  are  hidden 
from  him,  because,  like  the  sponge-sarcodes, 
he  is  still  chained  to  his  labour.  Man,  I 
repeat,  is  unconsciously  a  labourer  in  the 
building  of  the  city,  whose  architecture  and 
needs  to  himself  he  understands  scarcely 
better  than  the  sponge-sarcode  grasps  the 
beauty  of  the  Venus's  flower-basket ;  yet 
man's  city,  transcendental  though  it  must 
be  to  his  present  limited  senses,  may  one 
day  prove  not  less  real  than  the  city  of 
the  Euplectella. 

(ii).  So  far  went  the  endeavour  of  my  first 
lecture,  in  which  I  but  suggested  how  self- 
renunciation  may  be  essential  to  the  further- 
ance of  the  Law's  ideal.  In  this  one  I  am 


94  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

going  to  show  you  (a)  first  in  what  manner 
this  obedience  to  the  all-embracing  Law 
manifests  itself  in  Beauty  :  in  what  manner, 
that  is,  all  vital  forms  unconsciously — yes, 
still  unconsciously,  even  in  us  men — recog- 
nize and  declare  the  fact  of  this  obedience ; 
and  (£)  secondly,  how  definitely,  not  only 
service  of  the  Law,  but,  more  finely,  renuncia- 
tion of  self-service,  is  proclaimed  as  essential 
in  the  sense  of  religion. 

I  must  now  give  you  the  clue  to  the 
understanding  of  Beauty.  It  is  a  link 
between  obedience  in  service  and  obedience 
in  renunciation ;  for  it  is  the  mode  of 
expression  common  to  both. 

When  in  my  first  lecture  I  showed  you 
the  deep  influence  of  the  Law  upon  lowly 
forms  of  life,  I  must  have  given  you  know- 
ledge that  many  things  are  very  beautiful 
which  you  had  never  suspected  of  beauty; 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION     95 

that  forms  of  life  which  "  the  dark,  un- 
fathomed  caves  of  ocean  bear "  are  no  less 
exquisite  than  our  garden  flowers,  which 
some — perhaps  the  rich  who  hold,  and  not 
the  meek  who  inherit — think  were  created 
for  their  delight,  rather  than  to  fill  their  own 
place  in  God's  universe.  If  I  then  gave  you 
a  little  thought  of  the  universality  of  Beauty, 
as  well  as  a  belief  in  the  idea  of  service  being 
essential  in  life,  you  will  be  in  large  measure 
prepared  for  that  which  I  now  shall  say. 
I  might  have  discussed  Beauty  when  we  last 
met  quite  as  appropriately  as  now  ;  and  I 
might  now  quite  fitly  leave  the  subject  till 
after  my  say  on  the  religion  of  renunciation. 
But  Beauty,  as  you  shall  presently  under- 
stand, is  the  light  of  the  Law ;  and  we  shall 
best  consider  its  nature  before  proceeding 
further,  because  Beauty,  being  the  outshining 
of  both  service  and  renunciation,  will  help 


96  THE   RELIGIOUS    SENSE 

us  to  understand  their  relation  to  one 
another  and  to  our  life. 

Philosophers  have,  I  take  it,  since  ever 
they  began  to  think,  discoursed  upon  the 
significance  of  Beauty.  And,  again  without 
giving  you  the  views  of  great  thinkers,  I 
am  going  to  offer  you  a  simplification  of  the 
law  of  Beauty  that  shall  embrace  its  every 
aspect ;  and  this  although  at  present  I  intend 
going  no  further  than  an  examination  of  the 
question  in  relation  to  the  religious  sense. 
And  my  theory  is  no  new  one :  if  I  affirm 
Beauty  to  be  the  light  of  the  Law,  I  am 
but  substantiating  the  old  saying  of  the 
poet  that  Beauty  is  Truth. 

You  will  perceive  that  if  in  my  former 
lecture  I  dealt  with  the  earliest  indications 
of  the  ethical,  in  this  I  deal  with  the  indica- 
tions of  the  aesthetic ;  and  I  shall  show  you 
how  the  aesthetic  is  but  a  manifestation  and 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    97 

recognition  of  the  ethical.  In  other  words, 
I  shall  make  you  understand  that  Beauty 
is  the  light  of  the  Law  because  it  is  the 
revelation  of  the  Law.  Ethics  is  the  study 
and  understanding  of  our  obligation  to  Law  ; 
aesthetics  is  the  expression,  the  outward  and 
visible  manifestation,  of  this  obedience.  And 
we  shall  find  that  the  further  obligation 
reaches  in  any  form  of  life  beyond  its  own 
personal  needs,  and  the  more  definitely  it 
expresses  such  relation  to  the  relatively 
transcendental,  the  more  surely  do  we 
instinctively  declare  it  to  partake  of  the 
function  of  beauty.  Please  remember  this 
assertion  of  mine,  for  I  think  you  will 
admit,  before  I  have  ended  my  story,  that 
I  have  justified  it.  The  more  definitely  re- 
nunciation of  personal  rights  enters  into 
the  individual's  life,  the  more  surely,  if  such 
renunciation  ranks  as  service  to  the  Law, 

7 


98  THE   RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

does   the    individual's    personality    shine    in 
beauty. 

To  offer  you,  in  connection  with  the  sub- 
ject I  am  essaying  to  instruct  you  upon, 
a  theory  of  Beauty  must  appear  somewhat 
irrelevant.  But  it  is  not  so  ;  and  the  further 
we  proceed  the  more  clearly  will  you  under- 
stand that  the  idea  of  religion  and  that  of 
beauty,  if  I  am  right  in  the  explanation  of 
its  office,  are  inseparable  from  one  another. 

We  have  many  expressions  in  our  daily 
conversation,  [Still  more  in  our  religious  ob- 
servances, that  we  cannot  define  the  meaning 
of,  although  they  are  necessary  to  our  mutual 
understanding.  So  common  may  they  be 
that  we  casually  imagine  we  know  all  about 
them,  and  have  no  need  of  a  philosophical 
simplification  of  their  import.  Among  such 
stand  prominently  forth  the  words  beauty 
and  truth.  Thus  we  often  refer,  without 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION     99 

understanding  precisely  the  significance  of 
our  words,  to  the  truth  of  an  idea,  or  of 
a  phenomenon,  or  of  an  intent :  and  this 
although  the  person  most  likely  to  use 
such  an  expression  is  the  very  one  to  ask  the 
question,  "  What  is  Truth  ?  "  The  word  truth 
has  to  him  the  significance  of  some  deeper 
origin,  purpose,  or  law  than  is  evident  to 
the  casual  observer  ;  and  in  speaking  of  the 
truth  of  a  matter  or  an  idea  he  uses  a 
phrase  that  declares  alike  his  inability  to 
understand  and  yet  at  the  same  time  his 
belief  in  the  deep  origin,  purpose,  or  law  of 
that  matter  or  idea. 

So  with  Beauty.  The  person  most  ready 
to  feel  the  influence  of  the  beautiful,  and 
to  recognize  it  as  a  force  working  benefi- 
cently in  those  who  have  eyes  to  see  it, 
is  the  very  one  to  admit  that  he  does  not 
understand  it.  To  one  whose  eyes  and  heart 


ioo  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

seek  truth  in  the  ways  of  things,  the  beautiful 
awakens  deep  feelings  that  put  him  in  some 
sort  of  subjective  touch  with  a  mighty,  though 
hidden,  intent ;  and  this  very  fact  makes  him 
cry  out  against  his  own  dimness  of  eye,  and 
ask  the  question,  "  What  is  Beauty  ? " 

Moreover,  if  the  religious  sense  is  the 
recognition  of  the  individual's  dependence 
upon  the  law  that  has  need  of  him  and 
demands  service  that  shall  extend  in  purpose 
beyond  the  personal  and  social  life,  we  may 
say  that  religion  is  the  recognition  of  the 
deeper  truths  of  Nature.  And  if  some  deeds 
of  life  proclaim  its  service  to  an  idea  lying 
deeper  than  personal  needs,  the  manifestation 
of  such  idea,  taking  form  in  the  embodiment 
of  service,  is  what  we  mean  when  we  speak  of 
Beauty.  If  Truth  is  the  deep  law  of  our 
being,  Beauty  is  the  manifestation  of  such 
law.  If  we  labour  for  the  truth,  consciously 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    101 

or  unconsciously,  we  do  so  in  virtue  of  our 
religious  sense,  be  it  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious. If  service  of  the  truth  is  pure  and 
unadulterated,  it  produces  that  feeling  or 
emotion  in  another  which  makes  him  know 
that  he  stands  in  the  presence  of  a  shining 
light  which  he  calls  Beauty. 

So  that  Beauty  is  inseparable  from  the 
service  of  the  Law,  and  the  ethical  is  not  far 
removed  from  the  aesthetic.  When,  more- 
over, we  see  work  which  is  the  outcome  of 
service,  whether  observed  in  sponge,  flower, 
or  man  in  his  highest  offices,  we  give  ex- 
pression to  our  feeling,  ill  understood  though 
it  may  be,  and  say  that  the  thing  is  beautiful. 

Upon  some  other  occasion  I  hope  I  may 
have  opportunity  of  telling  you  more  of  the 
relation  of  Beauty  to  the  truth,  and  how, 
as  man  gains  clearer  perception  of  the  un- 
folding Law,  and  desires  closer  touch  with  its 


102  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

truth,  he  seeks  to  proclaim  his  faith  in  new- 
invented  forms  of  Beauty,  and  thus  discovers 
Art.  But  for  the  present  I  must  leave  the 
subject,  content  in  hoping  that  I  have  sown 
a  little  seed  in  your  minds  to  grow  and  bear 
fruit.  Yet  there  is  one  point  which  I  must 
briefly  refer  to,  because  I  seem  to  hear  a 
question  rising  already  among  you.  Why, 
you  ask,  is  the  beautiful  not  always  manifest 
in  those  who  obey  the  Law  ? 

But  is  it  not  always  so  manifest?  Not 
by  any  manner  of  means,  you  will  say. 
You  will  look  at  this  common  sponge,  and 
tell  me  that,  if  all  I  have  said  concerning 
its  structure  and  function  is  true,  it  ought, 
according  to  my  theory,  to  be  as  lovely  as 
the  Venus's  flower-basket ;  whereas,  casually 
looking  at  it,  you  cannot  admit  that  even 
its  unquestionable  service  to  man  justifies 
us  in  calling  it  beautiful.  Nevertheless,  as 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    103 

soon  as,  I  have  explained  to  you  its  system 
of  work,  and  told  you  the  truth   of  its  law, 
and  let  you  peep  within   its   city  walls,  you 
involuntarily    exclaim,    forgetting    your    re- 
pudiation of  my  theory,   "  How   beautiful  !  " 
And  your  instinct  proves  truer  in  its  feeling 
as   to   the    essential    in    Beauty    than    your 
intellect  can  understand.     Instinctively,  when 
you   see   how   even   an    ugly  bath-sponge  is 
the   result  of  life   intent  upon  its  law's  ful- 
filment in  obedience  and  service,   you  know 
what   Beauty  means  ;  and  indeed  you  come 
thereby   a    little    nearer    to    knowing    what 
Truth  is. 

Moreover,  as  soon  as  this  service  of  the 
Law  becomes  more  obviously  manifest  to 
our  eyes  in  the  spinning  of  glassy  threads 
and  the  weaving  of  them  into  such  exquisite 
vessels  as  this  Venus's  flower-basket,  we 
wonder  in  a  less  doubting  spirit.  "  Wonder," 


104  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

says  Bacon,  "  is  the  seed  of  knowledge," 
and  our  perception  of  Beauty's  wonder 
gives  knowledge  of  the  hidden  deeps.  And 
further,  when  we  know  that  the  protoplasmic 
folk  who  spin,  though  lacking  wheels,  and 
weave,  though  wanting  looms,  without  inter- 
communication or  moving  from  the  place 
where  each  is  chained — when,  I  say,  we 
understand  that  each  lays  down  his  micro- 
scopical length  of  thread  in  the  precise 
manner  needed  and  designed  by  the  idea 
of  the  whole,  formulated  by  the  will  of 
the  Law  governing  the  life  of  each  working 
cell,  we  are  silent  in  deep  worship  of  this 
eternal,  ever  revealing  Law,  in  whose  service 
we  men  and  women  are  also  enlisted.  We 
hardly  then  dare  exclaim,  "  How  beautiful !  " 
but  fall  silently  on  our  knees  as  if  in  tacit 
prayer  to  the  Unknown  for  some  closer  touch 
with  its  infinite  life. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    105 

All  life  above  the  lowest,  I  strongly 
suspect,  lives  solely  in  virtue  of  service. 
No  life  truly  lives  save  in  work.  If  it  seek 
to  do  otherwise,  be  it  amceba,  worm,  or 
man,  it  dies  or  degenerates  and  becomes  a 
parasite.  All  life  is  but  a  great  brotherhood  ; 
and  the  laws  of  the  parental  roof,  though  it 
be  as  wide  as  the  canopy  of  the  heavens,  are 
the  same  for  all.  There  is  no  life  possible 
but  in  service  and  work ;  and  there  is  no 
good  work  or  pure  service  possible  save  in 
the  strength  of  an  ever-growing  intent.  The 
life  of  the  acorn  is  its  power  of  growth ;  and 
the  life  of  man  is  his  power  of  increasing 
freedom  in  an  ever-growing  capacity  for 
service  in  renunciation.  It  is  this  faculty 
of  renunciation  which  must  now  engage  our 
attention. 

Once    more  I  will    show   you   how    merit 
is  not  peculiar  to  man ;  how  renunciation  is 


io6  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

not  merely  the  outcome  of  our  social  life 
or  the  invention  of  religious  mystics  and 
enthusiastic  visionaries.  And  this  time,  to 
illustrate  the  obedience  and  beauty  found  in 
the  faculty  of  renunciation,  I  pass  from  some 
humblest  forms  of  animal  life  to  some  of 
the  highest  developments  in  the  vegetable 
kingdom's  evolution. 

I  am  going  to  tell  you  about  two  flowers — 
the  daisy  and  the  wild  guelder-rose  ;  and, 
though  perhaps  some  of  you  know  more  of 
their  anatomy,  their  pedigrees,  their  physi- 
ology, and  their  place  in  botanical  classi- 
fication than  I  do,  I  shall  tell  you  of  a 
simple  fact  that  has  been  always  before 
your  eyes,  although  you  perhaps  have  never 
perceived  it. 

(iii).  The  daisy,  although  a  lowly  and 
common  flower,  takes  a  very  exalted  position 
in  the  evolution  of  the  vegetable  kingdom. 


PLATE  IV. 


THE   OXEYE    DAISY 


a,  the  complete  flower-head ;  b,  the  outer  pistillate  floret,  with 
ligulate  corolla ;  c,  the  inner  hermaphrodite  floret,  with  tubular 
corolla;  ct,  pistil;  e,  syngenesious  anthers 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    107 

(Plate  IV.)  You  probably  know  that  it  is 
a  community  of  many  individuals,  each  of 
which  takes  its  share  in  the  work  of  the 
city  it  inhabits  in  obedience  to  some  in- 
stinctive, innate  need  :  which  need  is  the 
life  of  each  individual  floret,  and  co-opera- 
tively comprises  the  life  of  the  whole. 
Each  of  the  individuals  forming  the  yellow 
disk  is  perfect  in  function  and  structure, 
competent  to  perform  all  the  offices  which 
it  is  the  glory  of  flowers  to  perform  :  each, 
that  is  to  say,  contains  anthers  and  pistil, 
pollen  and  ova,  and  spends  itself  in  trans- 
mitting the  law  of  life  throughout  the  ages 
that  shall  come.  There  is  no  specialization 
of  function  or  purpose  among  those  yellow 
florets ;  each  lives  the  same  life  as  its 
neighbour,  striving  in  the  same  idea,  living 
in  work,  and  dying  when  its  work  is  done. 
But  the  few  outermost  florets,  those  which 


io8  THE  RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

shine  in  the  aureole  of  white  rays,  are 
quite  different  from,  though  formed  upon  the 
same  plan  as,  their  modest  fellow  citizens. 
The  florets  of  the  disk,  I  say,  are  independent 
and  self-contained  workers  in  procreation, 
simply  fulfilling  the  Law  ;  but  the  circum- 
ferential rays, — white  with  the  purity  of  the 
noonday  sun,  tipped  in  the  twilight  red  with 
which,  in  promise  or  solace,  he  suffuses  the 
earth — these  have  relinquished  in  part  their 
privileges,  completeness,  and  independence. 
For  their  stamens  and  anthers,  as  you 
botanists  know,  have  disappeared  as  such, 
and  in  their  relinquishment  of  function  have 
provided  for  the  metamorphosis  of  the  in- 
significant tube-like  corolla  into  that  beauti- 
ful white  ray  of  light  which  extends  the 
form  and  fairness  of  the  flower  beyond  the 
bare  needs  of  the  community.  But  the  white 
florets  still  retain  their  pistil  and  the  function 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    109 

of  producing  seed,  although,  in  consequence 
of  their  serving  the  community's  needs,  they 
have  become  dependent  on  other  individual 
florets,  through  the  ministrations  of  insects, 
for  the  realization  of  their  desires  or  possi- 
bilities. The  white  petals  have  ordered 
their  lives  foolishly,  according  to  the 
laws  of  political  economy ;  for,  content 
in  shining  and  serving,  they  wait  upon 
ministration. 

But  how  do  the  white  petals  serve  their 
neighbours  ?  In  more  ways  than  one :  they 
protect  them  during  the  cold  night  and 
from  rain  in  the  day  by  folding  over 
the  sleeping  or  busy  workers  a  tent-like 
canopy ;  while  when  the  sun  shines  they 
fulfil  the  Law's  intent  by  attracting  insects 
that  shall  carry  the  pollen  from  flower 
to  flower,  and  thus  favour  that  cross- 
fertilization  which  is  so  advantageous  to 


no  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

every  species  in  both  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms. 

Now  I  take  it  that  the  highest  physio- 
logical privilege  in  animal  or  vegetable  is 
one  possessed  by  all  forms  of  life,  that  of 
fulfilling  the  Law's  needs  beyond  the  personal 
life  of  the  individual,  and  handing  onwards 
to  unborn  creatures  the  wonderful  torch 
of  life.  Each  keeps  the  torch  burning  in 
his  own  person,  and  spends  his  energies  in 
unconsciously  tending  it,  and  all  that  he 
may  hand  it  onwards  to  those  that  shall 
come,  undiminished  in  brilliance  and,  if 
possible,  stronger  in  intensity  of  evolutional 
purpose.  Yet  some  individuals  there  appar- 
ently must  be  who  have  other  offices  to 
perform,  and  who,  [though  they  relinquish 
this  high  privilege  of  their  inheritance,  who 
give  up,  perforce  or  by  choice,  their  share 
in  the  increase  of  life  that  shall  come,  yet 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION     in 

"  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait." 
Such  are  the  white  rays  of  the  daisy.  They 
stand  around  the  homes  of  their  breeding 
comrades,  and  fulfil  a  function  which  these 
have  forgotten.  What  function?  That  of 
maintaining  the  relation  with  and  depen- 
dence upon  another  kingdom  of  creation, 
from  which  they  are  widely  separated 
in  points  of  structure,  although  they  stand 
related  to  one  another  in  that  most  deep 
sympathy,  mutual  dependence.  The  insects 
of  shining  wing  and  the  flowers  of  gay 
colours  are  thus  mutually  dependent,  the 
butterflies  and  bees  for  their  honey,  the 
flowers  for  the  exchange  of  pollen  and 
the  perpetuation  of  their  species.  And  the 
outer  florets  of  the  daisy,  unfurling  their 
white  flags,  relinquish  their  individual 
perfection  :  they  accept  dependence  upon 
others  for  fertilization  solely  that  they  may 


ii2  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

add  to  the  perfection  of  the  whole,  and  give 
to  it  yet  another  function  which,  without  such 
renunciation,  the  flower  had  not  possessed. 

What  function  ?  you  again  ask  me.  The 
function  of  Beauty :  the  function,  that  is, 
of  declaring  upon  the  face  of  its  little 
citadel  that  the  Law  reigns  supreme;  that 
there  is  truth  dwelling  in  its  inmost  parts  ; 
that  its  symmetry  of  form,  its  tender  har- 
mony of  colour,  its  strong-rayed  light,  all 
point  to  a  deep  law  of  increase  in  service, 
which  law  proclaims  the  inspiration  of  its 
intent  in  manifest  beauty.  For  the  law 
of  all  laws  in  growth  of  life  is  this,  that 
in  serving  we  live ;  in  relinquishing  our 
narrower  needs  we  grow  ;  in  receiving  from 
others  what  we  need  in  exchange  for  service 
rendered  we  attain  the  higher  freedom  ;  in 
fulfilling  the  Law  our  service  shines  in 
beauty.  And  note :  this  mutual  serving  is 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    113 

the  very  antithesis  of  remorseless  dependence 
and  irreligious  charity,  which  both  favour 
parasitism ;  for  I  say  it  is  the  great  law 
supreme  in  all  evolution  that  by  losing  the 
life  we  find  it ;  by  giving,  and  thus  creating 
the  possibility  of  receiving,  we  extend  the 
life  beyond  the  confines  of  self,  beyond  even 
the  domains  of  society,  and  win  freedom 
for  our  growth.1 

1  It  may  be  objected  that  the  increasing  excellence 
of  form  in  the  outer  rays  of  the  daisy  is  but  the  result  of 
the  specialization  of  sex,  which  I  think  we  may  believe 
to  be  the  first  step  in  securing  that  mutual  dependence 
of  individuals  upon  one  another  which  is  the  beginning 
of  social  evolution.  But  the  argument  will  be  found 
faulty  if  we  consider  individual  points  in  some  of  the 
Composite.  The  relinquishment  of  the  staminate 
function  never  appears  to  be  of  direct  advantage.  In 
the  daisy  the  outer  florets  appear  to  me  often  to 
escape  fertilization  altogether,  while  in  the  leopard's- 
bane,  though  the  outer  florets  do  invariably  become 
fertilized,  their  seeds,  unlike  those  of  the  hermaphro- 
dites in  the  centre,  bear  no  pappus,  and  are  thus 
worse  equipped  for  flying  away  from  the  crowded 
parental  soil.  Note  also  the  fact  that  in  the  blue 
cornflower,  the  most  beautiful  of  all  wild  composites 
in  its  contrast  of  inner  and  outer  florets,  the  latter  are 

8 


114  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

Look  at  it  with  open  mind,  you  who  have 
not  thought  deeply  upon  such  things,  who 
have  not  yet  dared  or  desired  to  look  for 
what  must  lie  behind  Nature's  facts  and 
lesser  laws.  Do  not  say  that  I  am  drawing 
pretty  analogies  with  the  licence  that  is 
accorded  to  the  poet  just  because  of  his 
supposed  irresponsibility  !  Believe  me  when 
I  tell  you  of  this  brotherhood  of  all  life  in 
which  we  men  and  'women,  we  daisies 


neuters.  This  remarkable  fact  should  be  compared 
thoughtfully  with  the  account  of  the  wild  guelder-rose 
in  the  following  pages.  I  do  not  think  I  am  straining 
my  argument  in  suspecting  that  beauty  is  the  natural 
outcome  of  relinquishing  individual  interest  in  the 
service  of  the  community.  Nor  is  this  relinquishment 
the  less  disinterested  even  if  it  be  an  effort  after 
that  specialization  of  sex  which  ultimately  proves  so 
necessary  in  evolution,  and  thus  profitable  to  indi- 
viduals as  well  as  to  the  species.  I  may  add  that 
there  is  very  definite  evidence  in  the  vegetable  kingdom 
of  a  strong  tendency  towards  bisexualism,  and  that 
even  among  flowers  that  are  hermaphrodite  the  effort 
to  prevent  self-fertilization  and  to  encourage  cross- 
breeding is  strikingly  obvious. 


THE  RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    115 

and  sponges,  hold  our  being.  The  law  of 
life  is  the  master-law  which  rules  us  all, 
animal  and  vegetable,  and  its  essential  con- 
ditions are  the  same  for  all  who  breathe  in 
action  ;  for  all  who  wait  in  hope ;  for  all  who 
in  accepting  service,  serve ;  for  all  flowers 
which  are  but  momentary  crystallizations,  as 
it  were,  of  the  all-pervading  life ;  for  all 
human  beings  who  are  budding,  as  some 
may  be,  in  freedom  because  of  their  wilful 
service  of  the  Law.  Believe  me  that  if  birth 
and  growth,  change  and  death,  increase 
in  progeny,  ascent  in  excellence,  are  the 
properties  of  all  life,  the  laws  of  ethics  and 
aesthetics,  the  obedience  to  law  and  mani- 
festation of  this  obedience,  lie  deep  and 
essential  in  our  very  nature. 

Morals  and  the  laws  of  beauty  are  not  as 
the  small-minded  philosophers  would  have 
us  believe.  Duty  is  more  than  an  idea 


ii6  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

evolved  by  the  exigencies  of  society.  Duty 
is  not  merely  a  quality  of  good  citizenship  ; 
nor  is  it  something  contrary  to  our  nature 
and  taught  us  by  priests  that  we  may  over- 
come our  nature  and  save  our  souls.  Duty 
lies  at  the  very  root  of  life ;  it  is  life  and 
growth ;  it  is  work,  service,  renunciation. 
Duty,  as  I  shall  yet  show  you  and  you  shall 
come  to  believe,  is  freedom  itself.  And 
when  we  understand  better  in  science  and 
in  wisdom  the  true  import  of  duty  and  the 
ethics  of  freedom,  we  shall  come  nearer  to 
interpreting  the  master-law  of  life,  which 
holds  in  leash  all  lesser  laws,  despite  their 
apparent  conflict  and  confusion. 

And  as  the  daisy  shines  in  beauty  because 
it  declares  the  moral  equivalent  of  its  being, 
so  does  all  right  living  shine  in  some  kind 
of  radiant  symmetry.  And  Beauty,  being 
Truth,  is  as  much  a  function  in  life  as  is 


THE  RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    117 

obedience  to  the  Law ;  for  the  life  well  lived 
is  the  incarnation  of  Truth,  and  manifests  its 
nature  in  Beauty. 

I  have  many  more  things  that  I  would 
gladly  say  upon  this  vital  subject.  Again 
let  me  say  that  if  you  will  have  them,  I 
will  gladly  tell  you  all  I  know  upon  some 
other  occasion.  For  the  present  I  must 
keep  you  upon  the  idea  that  just  as  the 
ordinarily  accredited  attributes  are  insepar- 
able components  of  life  in  its  external  uni- 
formity, so  the  religious  sense  is  one  with 
life.  Deprive  vitality  of  any  one  of  its 
properties,  and  it  ceases,  it  dies.  Take  from 
the  Soul  her  growth,  and  she  dwindles  ;  take 
from  her  the  control  of  physical  law,  and 
the  forces  of  Nature  rend  her ;  take  from 
her  the  possibility  of  increase,  and  her  chief 
function  in  evolution  vanishes ;  take  from 
her  the  duty  to  obey  the  law  «of  her  being, 


u8  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

and  she  degenerates ;  take  from  her  the 
property  of  work,  and  she,  even  the  beau- 
tiful Soul,  becomes  parasitic,  and  insults  the 
eternal  Law :  and  this  is  not  the  less  true 
that  a  common  ambition  of  her  sons,  in  their 
worship  of  the  graven  images  Society  and 
Success,  is  to  be  parasitic  upon  their  neigh- 
bours— to  make  others  work  that  they  may 
fatten.  Lastly,  take  from  the  Soul  her 
religious  sense  and  its  manifestation  in  the 
beauty  of  her  face,  and  she  becomes  that 
for  which  I  find  but  words  that  I  dare  not 
lightly  use  for  any  work  created  in  beauty. 

Lastly,  all  life  is  endeavour  ;  all  living  is 
striving :  and  this  strife  is  the  ethical  law 
at  work  within  us  now,  as  it  has  been  at 
work  from  the  beginning  of  our  evolution. 
So  far  as  this  ethical  law  succeeds  in  enlist- 
ing in  its  service  servants  who  both  work, in 
obedience  and  strive  to  better  their  work, 


THE  RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION     119 

the  Law  succeeds  in  the  production  of  work 
which  all  pronounce  beautiful ;  it  makes 
the  faces  of  its  servants  shine  in  manifesta- 
tion of  its  might.  I  believe  that  the  more 
you  observe  for  yourselves  the  facts  of 
Nature,  the  more  surely  will  it  be  revealed 
to  you  that  life  cannot  be  divorced  from 
religion  without  disaster.  This  the  prophets 
have  ever  taught,  and  their  words  have 
been  true  only  because  their  master  is  the 
Will  of  the  Law. 

(iv).  But  I,  have  yet  more  to  say  concern- 
ing the  religion  of  renunciation  as  observed 
in  Nature ;  for  I  would  have  you  under- 
stand that  renunciation  is  as  much  concerned 
in  the  fulfilment  of  the  Law  as  is  that 
reciprocal  exchange  of  service  upon  which 
I  laid  so  much  stress  in  my  first  lecture. 

We  may  say  that  the  sense  of  meek 
citizenship  which  we  found  among  the 


120  THE  RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

sponge-individuals  is,  although  indubitably 
evidence  of  altruism,  still  based  upon  egoism, 
seeing  that  each  one  serves  because  of  his 
needs,  and  from  no  disinterested  motives. 
True  also  is  it  that  in  the  daisy,  where 
renunciation  is  more  definite,  the  sacrifice 
of  the  masculine  virility  to  the  production 
of  beauty  may  still  be  regarded  as  egoistic, 
seeing  that  definite  gain  may  be  won  to 
themselves  as  well  as  to  their  two-sexed 
neighbours.  Nevertheless,  in  the  daisy  an 
upward  step  in  growth  of  obligation  is  mani- 
fest ;  for  if  the  yellow  florets  give  pollen  to 
their  white-rayed  servants,  they  do  quite  as 
much  for  other  yellow  ones  in  a  neighbouring 
or  distant  daisy — and  they  do  not  serve  as 
the  white  ones  serve,  with  some  measure 
of  personal  disinterestedness,  and  with  the 
sense  of  the  obligation  to  manifest  the  Law 
in  beauty. 


PLATE  V. 


THE     WILD     GUELDER-ROSE     (Viburnum 

Showing  inner  fertile  and  outer  neuter  flowers 


THE  RELIGION  OF  RENUNCIATION    121 

And  I  am  now  going  to  tell  you  of 
the  wild  guelder-rose,  because  it  carries  us 
another  step  onwards.  Here  we  have  in  each 
head  of  flowers  a  number  of  individuals,  though 
few  as  compared  with  the  daisy's  (Plate  V.). 
These  individuals  live  quite  separately,  and 
are  not  all  seated  on  a  common  base  ;  each  is 
obviously  complete  and  independent.  They 
seem  to  be  congregated  together  in  a  sort 
of  chosen,  rather  than  compulsory,  com- 
panionship. Theirs  is  a  sort  of  society  for 
mutual  improvement  and  pleasure,  rather 
than  a  co-operative  workshop  like  the 
daisy.  You  know  how  different  the  flowers 
occupying  the  more  central  positions  of  the 
guelder-rose  are  from  those  forming  the  irre- 
gular outer  zone.  Each  of  the  inner  ones 
is  a  small,  complete,  but  not  strikingly 
pretty,  bisexual  flower.  With  these  alone 
the  guelder-rose  tree  would  not  be  so 


122  THE  RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

beautiful  an  object  in  our  woods ;  for  the 
creamy  colour  of  its  flowers,  some  half 
buried  in  the  leafy  green,  some  freely  dancing 
in  the  wind,  is  all  due  to  the  large-petalled 
outer  flowers,  which  herald  to  the  world  in 
banners  of  beauty  the  service  in  which  their 
humbler  companions  rejoice.  But  these  fine 
outer  flowers,  observe,  have  relinquished  all 
personal  purpose ;  they  are  neuters ;  they 
take  no  share  in  the  work  of  the  guelder-rose 
tree ;  they  do  not  breathe,  as  do  the  leaves, 
to  cull  carbon  from  the  air ;  they  do  not 
drink  with  the  roots  to  draw  minerals  from 
the  soil  for  the  strengthening  of  their 
habitation ;  they  produce  neither  pollen  nor 
ova.  That  they  may  obey  the  Law  in  its 
need  of  them  for  a  purpose  transcending  the 
immediate  privileges  of  their  fruitful  neigh- 
bours, they  have  relinquished  their  rights  in 
the  Law's  intent. 


THE  RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    123 

How  then,  you  may  ask,  if  they  do  no 
work  either  for  themselves  or  for  the  com- 
munity, do  they  serve  the  law  of  the  flower's 
being  ?  How,  you  will  ask,  do  they  declare 
the  beauty  of  the  guelder-rose  in  so  un- 
equivocal a  manner  ?  How,  if  they  are  not 
useful,  do  they  become  beautiful?  What 
truth  do  they  manifest? 
,  Notwithstanding  such  just  and  most  pro- 
fitable questions,  we  shall  presently  fully 
understand  that  it  is  only  because  these 
neuters  serve  that  they  are  beautiful;  it  is 
only  because  we  instinctively  have  knowledge 
that  this  must  be  so  that  we  call  them 
beautiful. 

To  me  there  are  few  things  in  Nature 
that  more  simply  show  us  the  meaning  of 
Beauty  than  this  wayside  guelder-rose.  Its 
beauty-flowers  have  renounced  their  highest 
privileges ;  they  have  forgotten  social  laws 


124  THE  RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

whose  very  essence  is  the  recognition  of 
mutual  advantage.  And  why?  That  they 
may  serve  the  Law  which  has  need  of 
them  beyond  their  own  life  or  the  life  of 
their  fellows.  And  in  this  renunciation 
they  declare  the  glory  of  the  Law,  they 
shine  in  manifesting  the  Truth  which  is  the 
sun  of  the  all-embracing  brotherhood.1  Yet 
these  flowers  which  do  no  work  for  their 
community  still  serve,  but  in  wider  obliga- 
tion than  their  fellows,  in  larger  sense  of 
beauty.  These  neuters  also  could  have  no 
beauty  but  for  their  utility.  The  Law  has  a 

1  I  confess  I  have  some  doubt  whether  the  indis- 
putable fact  that  insects  are  necessary  to  fertilization 
fully  explains  the  production  of  these  neuter  flowers, 
which,  by  the  way,  we  find  similarly  displayed  by 
the  blue  cornflower  (Centaurea  cyanus).  The  guelder- 
rose  (Viburnum  opulus)  is  first-cousin,  so  to  speak, 
to  the  wayfaring  tree  (Viburnum  lantana].  Their 
conditions  of  soil  and  locality  are  identical,  and  the 
flowers  differ  only  in  the  absence  of  neuters  in  the 
warfaring  tree.  Yet  the  flowers  of  the  latter  are  no 
less  surely  fertilized  than  those  of  the  guelder-rose. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION     125 

need  of  them  transcending  themselves  and 
their  community  ;  and,  so  far  as  they  serve 
this  need,  they  shine,  and  we  call  them 
beautiful.  We  are  amply  justified  in  believing 
that  the  Law  must  indeed  have  need  of  every 
living  thing  to  serve  and  declare,  however 
little  we  have  understanding  of  the  fact,  and 
however  strenuously  some  of  us  unimagina- 
tive human  members  of  the  vast  community 
of  life  may  doubt  our  dependence  upon  the 
eternal  or  deny  the  reality  of  the  religious 
sense. 

I  have  at  this  point  plunged  and  dragged 
you  with  me  into  the  very  springs  of 
thought  in  whose  waters  philosophers  love 
to  bathe,  in  which  some  simple-minded  men 
and  women,  unversed  in  lore  or  literature, 
find  pure  drink  for  their  thirsty  souls, 
good  solace  for  their  sorrowing  hearts,  but 
which  springs  the  men  of  mere  academic  or 


126  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

commercial  science  are  curiously  apt  to  find 
unprofitable. 

In  first  speaking  to  you  of  the  need  of 
work  and  the  nobility  of  service  in  the 
economy  of  life,  because  of  the  advan- 
tages thereby  accruing  to  individual  and 
society,  I  said  no  more  than  every  man 
who  is  not  a  parasite  would  acclaim  as 
good  science  and  profitable  to  our  belief 
in  utilitarian  ethics.  But  I  then  dived 
into  the  unknown,  and  spoke,  in  terms 
no  less  strong,  of  the  Law's  need  of  its 
creatures,  and  of  their  obligation  to  manifest 
the  truth  inherent  in  their  creation.  And 
it  is  for  you  individually  to  agree  with  or 
smile  at  me. 

To  one  who  has  never  felt  what  Beauty  is, 
who  has  not  profited,  nor  his  work  profited, 
by  its  inspiration,  I  find  I  cannot  speak. 
To  talk  with  such  a  one  would  be  nigh  as 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION     127 

reasonable  as  for  a  lark  to  sing  of  sunshine 
to  a  blind,  burrowing  mole.     Many  things  are 
unknown   to   us,  which,  though  they  cannot 
be   demonstrated   on   a   blackboard   or   in  a 
test-tube,   yet   manifest   themselves   in  truth 
too  deep  for  words,  alike  to   those   who  are 
simple-hearted   and   to   those  whose  wisdom 
is   profound.      We   cannot  prove   to   you  in 
laboratories  or  from  professorial  chairs  how 
mighty    a    thing    is    love,    how    weighty    in 
reality  is  honour,  how  grand  an  item  in  our 
lives  is  this  sense  of  abstract  yet  enduring 
truth.      So    little    can   we   do    these   things 
that   our   philosophies   and   sciences   should, 
in    their   worship   of   consistency,    laugh    at 
such   paradoxes    as    a    man    dying    for    his 
country  when  his  death  would  not  serve  it, 
or   another   dying   in   flames  rather  than  be 
apostate  from  a  creed  that  was  absurd.     And 
yet  we  know — some  of  us  at  any  rate — that 


128  THE  RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

we  would  rather  mankind  ceased  to  advance 
in    prosperity   and   education   than   that  the 
most  priceless  of  our  emotional  inheritances, 
love,   honour,  and  this  inherent  sense  of  an 
unintelligible  fitness  in  Beauty,  should  wane 
in   our   hearts.      These   undecipherable,    un- 
seen,  intangible   ideas   are   bigger  factors  in 
our   lives,   we   truly   know,   than   dividends  ; 
bigger   elements    in    our    nature    than    even 
intellectual   riches.     And   it   is   in   the  deep 
appreciation   of   these    realities,   abstractions 
though    they    be,     that    the    simple-minded 
and    the   uneducated  may  have  closer  touch 
with   the    Kingdom    of   Heaven    than   those 
exalted    in    pulpits    or    academies    or    ex- 
changes,   because   these   babies  in  ignorance 
more   truly,    if  mutely,    live    in    service     of 
the  Law. 

Yet  how  is  it,  we  must  ask  in  this  pursuit 
of  understanding,  that  we  have  learned  thus 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    129 

to  reverence  these  abstract  ideas,  when  they 
are  so  little  regarded  as  social  needs  or  as 
commercial  assets  ?  Just  because  we  hold 
in  us,  along  with  our  other  inheritances  in 
feeling,  an  instinctive  fund  of  common  sense ; 
just  because  we  know,  somewhere  deeper  in 
our  souls  than  broods  our  intelligence,  that 
no  such  inheritance  can  live  and  last  through 
the  ages  as  these  great  emotions  have  done, 
save  in  virtue  of  their  need  to  man,  save 
because  of  their  utility  and  necessity.  Had 
the  finer  aspects  of  love,  renunciation,  honour, 
and  such-like,  no  active  share  in  the  lives 
of  men,  they  would  have  disappeared  as 
useless  and  unprofitable  long  ages  since — 
just  as  the  eyes  have  gone  from  those  animals 
who  for  aeons  have  lived  and  bred  in  light- 
less  caves.  The  very  fact  that  these  abstract 
feelings  are  paramount  in  our  lives,  even 
though  often  debased  to  low  uses,  is  proof 

9 


130  THE  RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

to  our  common-sense  intelligence  of  their 
reality  and  utility ;  and  in  their  last  and 
nobler  uses,  I  say,  they  rise  beyond  and 
above  the  plane  of  serving  either  fellow 
man  or  society,  and  proclaim  to  us  their 
relation  in  utility  to  the  vast  and,  but  for 
these  inheritances,  unknown  depths  of  our 
being.  It  is  in  such  wise  that  the  most 
beautiful  traits  in  man's  nature — as,  by 
common  and  instinctive  consent,  we  admit 
the  passion  of  a  service  in  love  and  renun- 
ciation to  be — proclaim  that  the  truth  of 
the  Law,  which  has  ordered  these  things, 
transcends  the  utilitarianism  of  mundane 
philosophies,  politics,  and  religions. 

And  so  it  is  in  our  sense  of  the  beauty 
given  forth  by  the  useless  neuter  flowers 
of  the  guelder-rose  :  for  they  proclaim  that 
there  are  other  duties  than  the  serving  of 
self  and  society ;  that  Truth  is  the  law 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    131 

embracing  all  things ;  that  the  Law  is  manifest 
in  Beauty,  and  has  need  of  its  creatures  for 
this  high  function.  And  this  is  not  the  less 
true  that  the  transcendental  can  seldom  be 
manifested  save  in  living  for  others,  although 
at  times  it  rises  into  the  heights  of  passionate 
renunciation  not  only  of  self,  but  even  of  the 
rights  of  society.  Some  will  die  rather  than 
lie  even  to  save  a  neighbour. 

Thus  do  daisy  and  guelder-rose  show  their 
sense  of  obligation  and  their  privilege  in 
renunciation.  Thus  do  they  justify  my  use 
of  them  to  demonstrate  our  dependence 
upon  a  wonderful  environment  lying  beyond 
mundane  life  and  labour.  Thus  do  they 
proclaim  that  even  the  flowers,  if  we  may 
say  they  have  sense  of  life,  have  also 
sense  of  obligation.  And  obligation  means 
religion. 

I  am  still  intent,  I   trust,  in  spite  of  any 


132  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

appearance  of  dogmatism  in  my  argument, 
upon  understanding  any  objections  that  seek 
expression  in  your  thoughts.  I  should,  I 
fear,  think  very  ill  of  my  audience's  intel- 
lectual powers  if  they  were  not  prepared 
with  some  opposition  to  my  claims.  That 
man  who  will  believe  in  God  because  it 
is  customary  to  do  so  is,  in  my  mind,  as 
poor  a  creature  as  one  who  would  be  willing 
to  accept  the  propositions  of  Euclid  as  proven 
without  troubling  to  understand  them.1  Many 
things,  I  admit  and  indeed  hope,  must  be 
true  that  are  beyond  our  understanding ; 
but,  just  because  we  are  bound  to  this  fact, 
we  are  less  justified  in  setting  limits  to  our 
understanding.  Proof  is  one  thing ;  but  I 

1  A  man  may  be  a  heretic  in  the  truth ;  and  if  he 
believe  things  only  because  his  pastor  says  so,  or  the 
assembly  so  determines,  without  knowing  other  reason, 
though  his  belief  be  true,  yet  the  very  truth  he  holds 
becomes  his  heresy. — MILTON'S  Areopagitica. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    133 

think  there  is  a  form  of  understanding 
that  ranks  higher.  To  prove  that  a  flower 
declares  the  glory  of  God  is  not  possible 
to  the  greatest  intellect  that  ever  lived  or 
ever  shall  live ;  yet  to  understand  some- 
thing of  this  sense  of  beauty  in  a  flower, 
although  it  cannot  be  stated  in  words,  is 
possible  to  the  pure  in  heart,  be  they  ever 
so  dull  in  scholastic  attainments.  Is  it 
not  so? 

For  my  part  I  set  out  to  prove  to  you 
nothing.  My  hope  is  but  to  make  you 
ask  bigger  questions  than  some,  at  least, 
ever  thought  were  held  in  Nature's  catechism. 
And  not  the  less  do  I  seek  to  answer 
some  of  the  questions  that  must  arise  in 
your  minds  perhaps  in  objection  to  the 
method  of  my  argument ;  or  if  I  cannot 
answer  them,  I  hope  to  show  you,  I  repeat, 
how  to  look  at  some  questions  set  by  Nature 


134  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

in    terms    bigger    than    you    at    first    could 
understand. 

The  point  I  have  reached  is  this :  the 
relation  of  utility  to  ethics  and  aesthetics. 
For  two  of  your  questions  at  any  rate  are 
audible  to  me :  one  comes  from  the  scientists, 
and  the  other  from  the  idealists.  The 
scientist,  with  eager  attack,  will  assure  me 
that  all  this  beauty  of  the  flowers,  if  such 
we  must  call  it,  is  but  utilitarian  and 
prompted  by  self-interest ;  for  by  it  the 
flowers  attract  the  bees  to  the  furtherance 
of  cross-fertilization,  just  as  the  bees  are 
not  disinterestedly  assisting  the  nuptials  of 
the  flowers  by  hawking  about  pollen,  but 
are  merely  seeking  honey  and  food  for  their 
hives.  Do  I  mean,  he  will  ask,  in  derision 
of  my  idealism,  to  deny  that  the  gay  and 
distinctive  colours  of  flowers  have  primarily 
this  utilitarian  intent  ?  Do  I  mean  to  affirm 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    135 

that   the   guelder-rose's   object   in  producing 
the   neuter   flowers   is   not  to  attract  insects 
for   the   better   propagation   of    its   species? 
Also,   turning   to   ethics,   he  will  assert  that 
all  morality  is  but  the  law  of  social  advan- 
tage, and  that  social  obligation  is  only  such 
because  of  advantage  to  the  individual  ;  and 
he    will    challenge    me    to    show    that    the 
religious    sense,   if   such   there   be,    is  other 
than     the   instinct   of    the   individual    as    to 
his   own  interest  in  the  preservation  of  the 
laws  of  social  morality.     It  is  largely  because 
of  this  challenge,  which  is  heralded    with  so 
brazen  a  trumpet  through  the  woods  of  the 
soul's  quiet  hopes,  that  I  am  addressing  you. 
And    the    idealist,   with    saddened    heart, 
blames   me   for  a  utilitarian.      He   asks   me 
whether    I    do   not   degrade   the   finest   idea 
alike  of  beauty  and  morals  by  proving  them 
to  be,  after  all,  only  utilitarian. 


136  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

As    briefly    as    possible    I   will    reply   to 
both  animadversions. 

In    the     first     place     our     scientist    finds 
sufficient  explanation  of  the  meadow's  gaiety 
and  garden's  delight  in    the  fact  that  those 
vegetable   lives  have  best  survived  and  pro- 
pagated their  species  who  have,  accidentally, 
I  suppose,  produced  such  symmetry  of  form 
and     brilliance    of    colour    as    make    them 
easily   distinct   from    afar   to   the   bees    and 
butterflies   who   seek  their  honey.     And  this 
mutual   dependence   is   not    theory,    as   you 
know,  but  fact.     The  red  clover,  for  instance, 
cannot   exist  in  the    Antipodes   because   the 
humble-bee   cannot    be   acclimatized    there ; 
and  without  this  insect  to  carry  pollen  from 
anthers   to   pistils,   the   species   dies.     Those 
flowers,    the   biologist   will   say,   which   give 
best  honey  to  bees  set  out  the  gayest  flags  to 
mark  their  habitations;  and  certain  flowers 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    137 

thus  become  entirely  dependent  for  their 
species'  persistence  upon  the  ministration 
of  insects.  In  their  supply  of  honey  and 
brave  proclamation  as  to  where  in  the 
meadows  such  honey  is  sold,  the  flowers 
reveal  the  principle  of  a  utilitarianism 
which,  in  the  simple  language  of  those 
who  are  not  philosophers,  is  recognized  as 
beauty. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  this  mutual 
dependence  of  insect  and  flower.  We  have 
on  the  one  hand  highly  organized,  intellectual 
animals  with  brains  and  five  senses,  legs, 
wings,  and  muscles  ;  on  the  other  hand  we 
have  lowly  vegetables  lacking  nervous  system 
and  brain,  rooted  to  the  soil,  chained  in 
submission  to  ordeal,  having  no  knowledge  of 
life  beyond  some  dim  sense  of  wind  and  rain, 
light  and  darkness,  and  perhaps  an  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  wonderful  when  the  big 


138  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

bee  drops  upon  their  slender  forms  to  rob 
and  to  fertilize.  This  mutual  dependence, 
I  believe,  cannot  be  explained  except  by  the 
recognition  of  a  law  in  evolution,  that  held 
in  view,  during  the  building  up  of  the  flowers, 
the  building  up  also  of  the  insects  and  their 
communities.  It  can  be  understood  and 
explained  only  by  the  law  of  evolution, 
and  then  only  if  we  hold  that  the  law  had 
cognizance  of  the  advantages  in  mutual  de- 
pendence that  should  accrue  to  both  flowers 
and  insects.  Otherwise  we  must  suppose  an 
intellectual  sense  on  the  part  of  the  flowers 
themselves,  a  foresight  in  evolution  on  the 
part  of  the  insects  themselves;  whereas 
the  understanding  and  foresight  belong  to 
the  Law.  This  mutual  dependence  of  flower 
and  insect  upon  a  common  property,  the 
appreciation  of  colour  and  consequent  mani- 
festation of  beauty,  justifies  us  in  placing 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    139 

these  species  in  a  class  together,  though  they 
are  as  widely  different  in  their  structure 
as  any  two  species  could  be.  And  I 
maintain  that  such  system  of  classification 
will  not  be  the  less  just  that  it  is  not  scientific, 
but  transcendental  ;  not  factual,  but  ideal. 
I  maintain,  further,  that  the  law  responsible 
for  the  evolution,  side  by  side,  of  insect 
and  flower  could  have  brought  them  to- 
gether only  by  the  holding  of  these  two 
domains  of  its  creation  together  in  a  common 
intent.  On  the  other  hand,  if  such  a  theory 
is  in  opposition  to  our  facts  (and  I  main- 
tain that  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind) ;  if 
this  mutual  dependence  of  those  widely 
different  species  is  not  the  outcome  of  a 
law  embracing  both  ;  then  the  mutual  service 
is  all  accident. 

But    not    even    the    biologist     is    always 
scientific,   I    fear.     For   him    to   admit   such 


MO  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

influence  as  the  accidental  in  the  production 
of  life  is  the  rankest  heresy  conceivable — rank 
as  is  the  superstition  of  the  philosopher's 
stone  in  the  nostrils  of  the  chemist — rank  as 
is  belief  in  the  earth's  flatness  to  the  soul 
of  the  astronomer.  For  what  do  we  mean 
by  accident?  That  which  comes  about 
in  manner  contrary  to  the  ordered  and  usual 
course  of  events.  Law,  I  take  it,  is  the 
ordered  sequence  and  unfolding  of  events  ; 
and  vital  law  differs  from  mere  physical 
law  solely  in  this,  that  purpose  rules  its 
operations.  All  that  life  does  is  done  for 
the  attainment  of  some  object:  all  vital 
action  is  purposed,  whatever  the  process  may 
be  that  has  instigated  the  desire  or  purpose 
leading  to  action.  Whether  or  no  this  is 
the  truth  about  life,  accident  cannot  be 
defined  otherwise  than  in  one  of  two  ways. 
Accident  is  either  that  which  was  not 


/"DBRA^X. 

/  OF  THE  '"', 

I    UNIVERSITY  J 
THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    141 

expected,  or  that  which  happens  in  opposition 
to,  or  in  different  form  from,  the  supposed 
normal  course  of  events.  If  by  accident  the 
biologist  means  the  former,  we  must  praise 
his  somewhat  accidental,  because  unexpected, 
modesty ;  for  he  admits  that  the  limits  of 
his  narrow  theory  of  evolution  do  not  cover 
all  phenomena.  If  by  accident,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  means  the  abnormal,  that  which  is 
beyond  the  pale  of  the  Law,  then  I  advertise 
him  as  no  scientist :  for  he  holds  that  the 
paramount  force  in  evolution  is  the  influence 
of  the  illegal ;  he  claims  possession  of  a 
philosopher's  stone  that  can  transmute 
all  law  and  phenomena  into  that  which 
is  meaningless ;  he  pins  his  faith  upon 
No-law. 

No,  the  beauty  of  the  flowers  is  not  a 
mere  imaginary  by-product  of  mutual  utility, 
but  is  the  outward  and  visible  manifestation, 


142  THE  RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

the  deliberate,  determinate  manifestation  of 
the  inward  and  transcendental  Idea  which, 
greater  than  the  law  of  the  evolution  of 
species,  because  it  has  itself  evolved  that 
law,  embraces  the  insect-  and  flower-world 
in  a  community  of  mutual  service  and  in- 
dividual manifestation.  Do  not  take  my 
word  for  it :  spend  your  lives  in  searching 
for  accident,  that  most  stupid  of  man's 
creations  in  slothfulness,  and  you  will 
never  find  it.  Law  is  eternal  and  ubiqui- 
tous :  that  which  is  bereft  of  the  Law  is 
vanished ;  that  which  the  Law  has  not 
conceived  lives  only  in  the  foolishness  of 
our  limitations. 

And  although  you  scientists  may  affirm 
that  I  have  not  answered  your  objections, 
I  have  put  to  you  some  questions  which 
you  must  answer  for  me  before  I  can  teach 
you  further.  Why  and  how  the  initial  steps 


THE  RELIGION  OF  RENUNCIATION     143 

in  the  evolution  of  bee  desirous  of  honey 
and  unknowingly  bartering  pollen,  or  of 
flower  desiring  fertility  and  giving  honey 
to  the  brown-hued  priests  of  Hymen, — why 
and  how  such  initial  steps  were  taken  in 
beginnings  long  before  such  beginnings  could 
give  evidence  of  a  utility  we  find  only  in 
their  consummation — this  question  you  shall 
at  least  ask,  though  the  only  answer  may 
appear  to  you  unscientific.  Yet  the  answer, 
though  it  cannot  be  demonstrated  in  material 
facts,  is  but  the  recognition  of  a  law  greater 
than  those  we  can  demonstrate  ;  while  the 
alternative,  the  theory  of  accident,  gives  the 
lie  to  man's  highest  intellectual  faculty,  his 
instinctive  belief  in  the  Law  as  the  very 
nature  and  soul  of  things.  And  if  I  have 
not  answered  your  objection,  at  any  rate  I 
have  made  you  see  that  the  fact  of  this 
utilitarian  give-and-take  between  flower  and 


144  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

insect  must  arise  also  in  obedience  to  the 
great  Law  which  is  beyond  the  knowledge 
alike  of  gifted  bee  and  guelder-rose.  If  I 
have  to  admit  our  mental  limitations  on 
account  of  our  ignorance,  I  have  neverthe- 
less made  you  see  that  these  limitations, 
although  we  affirm  beauty  to  be  the  outcome 
of  the  insects'  and  flowers'  mutual  serving, 
do  not  deprive  us  of  a  right  to  explain  this 
beauty  as  the  expression  of  transcendental 
obedience. 

And  you  scientists,  just  as  you  would  set 
limits  to  the  operations  of  a  law  of  which 
the  furthest-seeing  of  us  have  but  the 
glimmering  of  an  understanding,  you  seek 
also  to  find  the  limits  of  virtue  in  what  you 
consider,  to  be  common-sense  utility;  and 
in  this  wise  you  must  object  to  my  enlarging 
our  conception  of  ethics  beyond  what  is 
demonstrable  as  fact.  And  yet  I  am, 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    145 

throughout     my     attempt     at     interpreting 
virtue     and     beauty,     adopting     your     own 
theory,   and    saying    that    nothing    is    good 
which  is  not  serving,  nothing  is  fair  except 
in    so    far   as    it    proclaims   the    law    of    its 
service.     I    even  endorse  your  apotheosis  of 
common-sense :     but    with     this     difference, 
that    I    attempt    to   give   it    even    a    higher 
place   among    the   gods    of    our   intellectual 
household    than    you    would    approve,    and 
affirm   it  to  be  an  instinct  so  priceless  that 
it  must  stand  side  by  side  with  the  religious 
sense.      For    I   say   that   when    the   goddess 
Common-sense  tells  us  we  have  free-will,  we 
must  believe  in  the  freedom   of  will  for  all 
we    are    worth ;  when    she    speaks    of   love 
transcending    self-advantage,    we    dare    not 
question    her;   when    she    tells   some   of   us 
that    Beauty    illuminates    the    firmament    of 
truth,   we    have    no    right,   because   we    are 

10 


146  THE  RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

scientific   men,   to   call   our   goddess  a  mere 
graven  image. 

In  my  third  lecture  I  shall  discuss  further 
the  reality  of  the  religious  sense  in  man  as 
a  sense  that  transcends  social  obligation. 
For  the  present  I  claim  to  be  in  large 
agreement  with  the  utilitarian.  But  if  I 
admit  that  ethics  have  in  view  no  more  than 
the  welfare  of  the  individual,  the  community, 
and  the  race,  it  is  upon  the  understanding 
that  individual,  community,  and  race  hold 
essential  in  their  very  nature  ideals  that 
transcend  dividends  and  are  inimical  even 
to  contentment. 

And  now  for  the  second  question,  which 
I  guessed  that  you  idealists  were  asking. 
Do  I  not,  you  ask,  lower  oar  exalted 
meaning  of  the  ethical  and  the  beautiful  in 
finding  that,  when  all  is  said,  they  depend 
upon  utility?  Is  not,  you  ask,  our  very 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    147 

conception  of  morality  something  which 
transcends  advantage?  Do  I  not  degrade 
art  to  mere  commercialism  when  I  say  that 
our  sense  of  the  beautiful  is  but  our  sense 
of  what  is  successful  ?  Have  I  forgotten 
that  I  declared  transcendentalism  to  be 
hope  or  belief  in  that  which  is  paramount 
to  the  modus  vivendil 

And  if  you  ask  me  these  questions,  and 
do  so  partly  because  of  the  things  I  am 
seeking  to  teach  you,  you  must  know  that 
I  ask  them  also,  and  in  the  asking  find 
answer.  You  feel  with  me  that  it  is  alto- 
gether essential  that  we  should  be  clear 
upon  these  points,  not  only  for  the  sake 
of  our  own  intellectual  honour — the  most 
precious  perhaps  of  all  honours — but  that 
we  may  present  a  firm  front  to  those  who 
say  that  creeds  are  but  policies  of  insurance 
against  certain  unpleasant  contingencies, 


148  THE   RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

invented  by  mad   fanatics  or  greedy  priest- 
hoods. 

While  we  should  deny,  with  our  very 
lives  if  need  be,  such  imputations  upon  the 
saints  and  prophets  of  the  earth,  such  mean 
belittling  of  those  whom,  in  our  better 
common-sense,  we  know  to  be  the  greatest 
among  men  and  women,  we  will  yet  admit 
to  the  full,  as  I  have  just  now  declared,  the 
theory  of  the  utilitarian  philosopher :  we 
will  join  with  him  in  affirming  that  nothing 
is  good  which  does  not  serve,  that  nothing 
is  beautiful  which  does  not  express  its 
service.  This  must  be  the  creed  alike  of 
utilitarian  and  idealist.  But  the  idealist's 
admission  will  be  fuller  than  the  utilitarian's, 
because  it  transcends  his,  because  it  declares 
that  life  serves  the  Law  in  ways  that  alto- 
gether transcend  knowledge  and  philosophy. 
The  beauty  of  the  sunflower  and  daisy  is 


THE   RELIGION  OF  RENUNCIATION    149 

such  because  it  transcends  their  obligation 
to  their  species,  and  shines  in  recognition 
of  a  law  that  embraces  needs  beyond  those 
of  the  natural  order,  Compositae ;  because 
they  have  some  sense,  transcending  the 
understanding  of  the  botanist  and  zoologist, 
of  affinities  with  the  bees  and  the  butterflies, 
some  dim  feeling  of  privilege  in  serving  the 
great  world  that  includes  and  yet  is  beyond 
and  above  themselves. 

Yet  I  can  imagine  an  idealist  who  may  still 
be  dissatisfied  with  this  definition  of  faith  ; 
for  he  feels  that  any  attempt  at  complete 
understanding  alike  of  Nature  or  of  such 
divine  conceptions  as  Truth  and  Virtue, 
Beauty  and  Service,  must  be  impious.  He 
would  rather  be  mystic  than  scientist, 
rather  worship  in  meek  admission  of  ignor- 
ance than  sing  praises  awakened  by  the 
understanding  of  God's  ways.  If  he  do  so 


ISO  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

think,  we  part  company,  without  further 
criticism,  because  together  we  should  but 
be  seeking  that  which  only  one  of  us 
desires. 

But  I  claim  the  privilege  of  the  rostrum, 
and  must  have  the  last  word.  I  ask  the 
mystic  idealist,  and  he  may  be  Calvinist  or 
Papist,  Evangelical  or  High  Churchman,  if  he 
will  conceive  of  a  system  of  morality  or  of 
beauty  that  shall  be  altogether  independent 
of  utilitarian  intent  ?  He  would  perhaps 
make  charity  so  absolutely  dissociated  from 
advantage  that  bread  cast  upon  the  waters 
could  by  no  possibility  return  after  many 
days ;  and  the  wonderful  weaving  of  human 
society  into  a  fabric  designed  for  some 
unknown  purpose,  so  that  not  a  strand  of  its 
warp  is  weak  without  the  whole  suffering, 
and  not  a  thread  of  its  weft  shines  but 
the  whole  is  enlightened,  cannot  appear  to 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    151 

him  admirable.  For,  our  part,  nevertheless, 
the  fact  that  virtue  must  bring  its  own 
reward,  perhaps  after  many  days,  and  in  a 
sense  not  measurable  in  terms  of  mundane 
commercialism,  in  no  way  can  detract  from 
the  purity  and  disinterestedness  of  such 
virtue.  It  is  one  thing  to  cast  bread  upon 
the  waters  because  it  may  return  to  us, 
and  we  get  the  credit  of  our  charity  ;  and 
it  is  another  thing  to  share  our  last  crust 
and  find,  despite  our  consequent  hunger, 
comfort  in  the  thought  of  the  simple-hearted 
that  God  can  give  us  bread  to  cure  all 
hunger,  and  that,  in  our  self-denial,  we  gain 
an  eternal  reward.  The  question  is  not  so 
much  whether  right  action  is  rewarded  by 
its  consequences,  as  whether  the  prospective 
gain  is  ethically  desirable.  To  conceive 
of  a  system  of  ethics  that  is  purposeless  or 
unutilitarian  is  as  ridiculous  as  to  conceive 


152  THE  RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

that  the  omnipotence  of  God  will  be  satis- 
factorily proved  only  when  He  is  shown  to 
create  without  purpose.  That,  I  take  it,  is 
more  than  the  most  exacting  atheist  would 
demand  in  his  idea  of  a  God  he  could  worship ! 
To  conceive  of  a  system  of  ethics  that  is 
purposeless,  that  loses  merit  if  shown  to  be 
advantageous,  is  to  suppose  a  spirit  of  tyranny 
and  no-law  to  be  paramount  in  the  universe. 

No,  we  can  hardly  reason  with  the 
mystic ;  nor  can  we  reason  with  one  who 
claims  that  everything  is  revealed.  Yet,  as 
there  is  mystery  in  the  beauty  of  the  daisy 
and  miracle  in  the  work  of  the  guelder-rose, 
so  there  is  science  and  law  ever  revealing  to 
us  that,  beyond  and  behind  even  these 
common  things,  which  we  love  the  more  just 
because  of  their  mystery,  there  is  a  divineness 
of  utilitarian  intent,  a  grace  of  service  to  man 
and  all  his  brothers  in  the  universe  of  life. 


THE   RELIGION  OF   RENUNCIATION    153 

I  crave  one  word  more  on  the  subject  of 
the  religion  of  renunciation,  because  I  would 
have  you  understand  that  it  is  an  absolutely 
real  factor  in  life.  For  the  moment  I  am  not 
discussing  its  relation  to  man,  though  we  may 
see  with  a  little  thought  that  even  his  species 
cannot  escape  from  renouncing  self  in  an 
unrecognized  sense  of  the  Law's  needs.  I 
would  have  you  realize  how  much  it  is  part 
of  the  very  nature  of  life  to  possess  the  sense 
that  individual  behests  are  secondary  not 
only  to  social  needs,  but  to  the  Law's  needs 
of  the  service  of  its  creatures.  Nor  is  there 
cruelty  on  the  part  of  the  Law  that  it  demands 
this  sacrifice.  The  lark  feels  no  hardship 
in  sitting  upon  her  eggs  while  her  mate  is 
delighting  his  heart  in  the  sky :  yet  she  has 
renounced  her  personal  joy  in  exchange  for 
a  peaceful  serving  of  the  law  which  has 
need  of  her  fledglings ;  indeed,  it  is  because 


154  THE  RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

of  the  mother's  service  in  the  great  mystery 
of  life  that  the  joys  of  maternity  are  so 
real  in  their  ideality.  Both  the  bird's  and  the 
human  mother's  love-hope  is  what  we  know  it 
to  be,  not  because  of  the  consciously  looked 
for  reward  of  their  waiting,  but  because  of 
the  deep  instinct  of  serving  and  union  with 
the  transcendental  power  which  we  wise 
men  yet  say  we  can  know  nothing  about. 
That  the  bird  feeds  her  nestlings  with  worms 
before  she  satisfies  her  own  hunger,  I 
can  well  believe ;  that  the  starving  woman 
gives  her  milk  to  her  baby  even  though 
knowing  that  thereby  her  own  need  of  food 
becomes  greater,  is  matter  of  fact.  There 
may  be  a  mundane  cruelty  in  the  woman's 
hunger,  and  more  in  the  fact  that  she  cannot 
feed  the  little  one  who  looks  to  her  for  all 
things  ;  but  she  never  ascribes  cruelty  to  her 
instinct  that  her  baby's  need  must  be  satisfied 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION    155 

before  her  own,  even  though  she  is  of  use 
in  the  world  and  his  use  is  only  prospective. 

Even  in  this  terrible  law  of  evolution, 
which  often  looks  to  us  like  an  inexorable, 
merciless  tyranny,  sacrificing  the  weak  and 
the  failing  that  the  stronger  may  survive 
and  advance  the  excellence  of  the  species, 
I  find  no  cruelty.  For  lion  meets  lion  in 
deadly  conflict  that  the  better  of  the  two 
of  them  may  survive  for  the  furtherance 
of  the  Law's  needs  ;  and  to  them  the  fight 
is  the  delight  of  the  moment.  Each  is 
willing  for — nay,  is  driven  to — the  contest  by 
the  unknown  Law's  impelling,  which  is  their 
instinct  each  to  make  and  assert  his  personal 
excellence  and  fitness  for  survival.  Even, 
I  suspect,  in  the  destruction  of  the  maimed 
by  the  strong  we  may  perceive,  not  so 
much  cruelty,  as  the  strange  desire,  un- 
tempered  by  love  or  mercy,  that  only  the 


156  THE  RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

fit  should  survive ;  indeed,  I  think  this 
instinct  may  be  actually  merciful  to  the  unfit, 
if  his  fellows  can  save  him  from  hindering 
the  Law. 

But  these  points  take  us  too  far  afield  from 
the  present  topic :  I  have  touched  upon  them 
that  you  may  not  think  I  am  optimistically 
declining  to  look  in  the  face  all  the 
things  that  to  us  who  suffer  and  love 
must  be  horrors  in  the  Law's  workings. 
At  the  moment  I  want  you  to  realize 
that,  so  far  from  there  being  hardship 
in  the  Law's  need  of  our  work,  and  in 
our  renunciation  of  personal  delights,  it 
may  be  quite  the  reverse.  If  the  hopes 
upon  which  the  best  citizens  build  their 
lives  are  based  upon  truth,  then  self-sacrifice, 
being  but  obedience  to  the  Law's  higher 
need  of  us,  is  our  greater  delight  and  reason- 
able privilege.  So  strong  in  some  men  and 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION     157 

women  is  this  instinctive  desire  for  renuncia- 
tion that  it  takes  foolish  forms — foolish 
because  unutilitarian,  foolish  because  they 
suppose  an  unreasoning  God  will  be  gratified 
by  a  self-renunciation  that  is  purposeless. 
It  is  the  instinctive  desire  for  serving  God 
in  some  great  way  that  makes  the  willing 
martyr  glad  in  his  heart ;  and  it  is  no  less  the 
same  instinct,  foolish  though  its  manifesta- 
tions be,  that  induces  senseless  asceticism — 
senseless  when  purposeless  and  furthering 
no  ideal  of  the  Law,  the  state,  or  the  person. 
It  is  the  desire  for  such  service,  I  think, 
although  it  is  often  basely  accentuated  by 
a  desire  for  propitiating  an  unreasoning  and 
purposeless  Deity,  that  lies  at  the  root  of 
many  fastings  and  sacrifices,  and  impels 
ignorant  and  foolish  devotees  to  cast  their 
children  and  themselves  beneath  the  wheels 
of  the  Juggernaut  car. 


158  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

Indeed,  I  doubt  whether  the  Law  is  so 
regardless  of  the  individuals  of  a  given 
species  as  would  appear  from  its  dominant 
need  of  the  species'  betterment.  Much  that 
we  call  suffering  appears  as  such  only  be- 
cause we  imagine  what  our  own  pain  would 
be  if  we  were  placed  in  like  circumstances. 
In  the  same  stupid  spirit  we  blame  a  man 
for  failure  in  doing  what  is  easy  to  ourselves. 
One  in  agony  with  toothache  cannot  believe 
that  another,  having  as  bad  a  tooth,  has  yet 
no  pain.  One  knowing  no  temptation  to 
steal  because  he  is  cursed  with  a  superfluity 
of  worldly  goods,  cannot  judge  of  the  small- 
ness  of  sin  in  a  brother  who  takes  from  him 
what  he  does  not  need.  It  is  better  to  be 
hungry,  even  though  the  hunger  bring 
temptation,  than  to  be  surfeited,  even  though 
compulsory  virtue  is  the  recompense.  We 
cannot  measure  either  the  cruelties  or  the 


THE   RELIGION   OF   RENUNCIATION     159 

mercies  of  the  Law :  for  judgment  may  be 
salvation  ;  and  profit,  as  held  by  most  men, 
may  be  damnation.  Similarly  the  life  of 
renunciation,  even  when  ordered  in  wise 
obedience,  may  look  hateful,  even  cruel,  to 
one  who  finds  in  pleasure  a  sufficient  reason 
for  living  :  to  such  a  one  it  were  as  useless 
to  talk  of  the  joy  of  living  the  life  needed 
by  the  Law  as  it  were  to  argue  with  a 
Hottentot  on  the  solaces  of  literature. 

No,  talk  how  you  will  as  to  the  necessity 
of  all  virtue  being  disinterested  and  beauty 
exalted  above  utility,  you  cannot  evade  the 
fact  that  virtue  has  excellence  only  so  far 
as  it  brings  the  Kingdom  of  God  into  our 
lives  and  thus  brings  us  joy ;  that  beauty  is 
such  only  so  far  as  it  reveals  the  truth  of 
God's  intent,  be  it  immediate  or  prospective 
in  its  fulfilment. 


The  Religion  of  Freedom 


161 


Ill 

THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM 

You    will    have    suspected    from    my    pre- 
ceding   lectures    that    I    observe   a    process 

of  evolution   or    advance,   in    slow,   perhaps 

• 

erratic,  yet  certain  steps,  from  the  most 
elementary  indications  of  the  religious  sense 
in  structureless  forms  of  life,  up  to  its  mani- 
festation in  our  relatively  exalted  selves. 
And  this  subservience  to  the  Law  results 
first  in  the  establishment  of  ethical  obligation 
to  the  Law,  that  is  of  conscious  and  wilful 
obedience,  and  secondly  in  the  development 
of  that  freedom  which  appears  to  be  the 
purposed  outcome  of  the  Law's  intent.  But 
163 


164  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

the  process  of  the  development  of  a  purely 
passive  sense  of  obligation  into  a  consciously 
active  sense  of  ethical  privilege  can  hardly 
be  traced  within  the  compass  of  one  lecture. 
To  attempt  this  would  involve  an  examina- 
tion of  the  evolution  of  self-consciousness, 
through  which  alone  can  come  understanding 
of  our  relation  to  the  law  of  life.  This  is 
too  wide  a  theme  even  to  touch  upon  now, 
and  I  must  be  content  in  this  lecture  with 
examining  the  bearing  of  religious  obligation 
upon  the  development  of  ethical  freedom. 
Such  a  promise  must,  I  fear,  sound  formid- 
able enough ;  yet  I  think  this  lecture  will 
prove  easier  than  my  other  two. 

But  before  I  start  my  argument  I  want 
to  say  a  preliminary  word  in  defence  of  my 
method.  You  might  casually  think  that 
because  the  whole  of  this  lecture  will  be 
devoted  to  a  consideration  of  the  relation 


THE   RELIGION  OF   FREEDOM        165 

of  man  to  the  law  of  his  being,  I  have 
abandoned  my  position  of  scientist.  But 
it  is  not  so.  For  what  is  science  but  the 
study  and  understanding  of  facts  and  the 
laws  which  their  relation  to  one  another  as 
cause  and  effect  reveal  ?  And  man  is  surely 
not  the  less  a  good  subject  for  this  method 
of  study  that,  in  some  of  his  properties, 
experimental  analysis  will  hardly  help  us 
to  their  interpretation.  I  maintain  that  pre- 
cisely as  we  can  study  the  nature  of  a  sponge 
and  a  daisy  in  its  philosophical  aspect  by 
scientific  process,  so  we  can  study  man  ;  and, 
in  the  same  method  with  which  I  began  I  shall 
end.  Even  in  man,  I  maintain,  the  religious 
sense  is  susceptible  of  proof.  Yet  this 
proof  is  not  found  in  the  method  of  some 
theologians,  whose  very  basis  of  argument 
depends  upon  the  assumption  that  the  Scrip- 
tures are  divinely  inspired  in  a  sense  contrary 


166  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

to  necessity,  reason,  and  facts.  In  a  pro- 
founder  sense  the  evidence  of  inspiration 
may  be  clear  enough :  as  all  work  shines 
in  beauty  the  more  finely  it  is  inspired  by 
the  Law,  so  in  the  Scriptures  we  may  find 
intrinsic  evidence  of  inspiration.  Neverthe- 
less, we  cannot  present  this  assumed,  or  to 
some  of  us  revealed,  evidence  of  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  gospels  as  fact ;  and  therefore 
the  method  of  the  less  intellectual  theologian 
is  not  scientific.  His  position  may  be 
sound  or  it  may  not :  we  are  not  now 
considering  it.  We  are  seeking  facts  that 
shall  scientifically  corroborate  or  refute  his 
teachings  that  God  has  given  us  talents 
and  holds  us  responsible  for  their  increase. 
This  is  my  preliminary  word. 

(i).  You  will  perhaps  remember  that  I 
promised  in  this  my  third  lecture  to  discuss 
further  the  reality  of  this  religious  sense  as  a 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM         167 

factor  in  our  inner  consciousness.  This  is  the 
more  imperative  seeing  that  it  is  common 
among  those  who  would  be  fashionable  in 
their  intellectual  garments  to  question  the 
reality  of  this  transcendental  sense.  Many 
indeed  profess  to  have  no  feeling  of  that  need 
of  touch  with  the  infinite  which  is  so  powerful 
an  impulse  in  some  to  live  cleanly  and 
to  better  the  world  for  those  who  shall  yet 
come.  Others,  although  not  devoid  of  the 
religious  sense,  are  so  genuinely  shocked  by 
the  patronage  of  religion  because  of  its 
respectability  or  fine  traditions — are  so 
rightly  contemptuous  of  such  as  go  to  church 
for  example  to  their  servants,  or  who  grind 
the  faces  of  the  poor  to  parade  their  re- 
ligious zeal  in  finery, — that  they  prefer  to 
boast  an  honest  agnosticism.  And  others, 
yet  again,  are  so  absorbed  in  their  pur- 
suits, be  they  household  drudgery,  scientific 


168  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

investigations,  classical  erudition,  politics,  or 
mere  money-making,  that  there  is  no  room 
left  in  their  hearts  for  this  sense  to  germinate 
and  grow,  though  it  is  foremost  among  their 
inheritances  and  priceless  even  in  its  work- 
a-day  worth.  Be  the  reason  what  it  may, 
the  objector  commonly  explains  the  religious 
instinct  by  affirming  it  to  be  the  inheritance 
of  a  superstition  instilled  into  the  people  in 
past  ages,  whether  by  ignorant  and  greedy 
priesthoods  or  by  timid  and  tyrannical 
thrones,  in  order  that  the  multitudes  may 
be  kept  from  a  knowledge  of  their  rights 
and  their  power. 

Our  environment,  on  the  other  hand, 
such  a  one  will  say,  teems  with  appeals 
to  our  altruistic  sense  on  behalf  of  suffer- 
ing humanity ;  our  paths  are  beset  with 
churches  and  cemeteries,  Bibles  and  illu- 
minated texts,  all  of  which  stimulate  our 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        169 

fear  of  death,  if,  indeed,  they  are  not  re- 
sponsible for  it ;  and  our  conversation  is 
interlarded  with  phrases  like  love,  honour, 
justice,  etc.,  which  have  assumed  transcen- 
dental equivalents,  although  meaning  nothing 
beyond  personal  advantage  and  social  ex- 
pediency. Such  factors  as  these,  our  agnostic 
says — some  of  them  necessary  to  society, 
although  misinterpreted  by  priests  and  poets ; 
some  of  them  merely  the  fantasies  of  fear — 
form  an  environment  from  which  we  cannot 
escape.  Between  them  they  conjure  up  a 
condition  of  mind  which,  he  thinks,  must  be 
artificial  because  not  universal,  and  imaginary 
because  not  a  measurable  equivalent.  And 
this  is  the  condition  of  mind,  he  holds,  which 
is  called  by  the  priests,  by  some  wise  men, 
and  by  many  who  are  intellectually  un- 
cultured, the  sense  of  religion. 

Some   among   the   best  of   good    citizens 


i;o  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

think  and  boast  that  they  do  not  possess 
the  religious  sense  and  do  not  desire  it. 
They  mount  on  stilts,  look  down  on  the 
heads  of  those  who  walk  on  the  mere  legs 
of  their  inheritance,  and  forget  that  their 
position  is  remarkable  rather  than  normal. 
They  think  they  have  supplanted  part  of 
their  birthright,  and  do  better  without  it ; 
and  then,  in  natural  sequence  of  thought, 
they  hold  that  it  never  was  real.  Or,  if 
they  do  not  thus  express  themselves,  they 
claim  that,  even  if  the  religious  or  super- 
stitious sense  does  still  exist  for  some  belated 
wanderers  in  evolution,  these  had  best  follow 
their  own  example  and  rise  superior  to  its 
influence.  And  they  have  not  yet  learned 
that,  in  certain  common  contingencies,  a 
stilted  elevation  of  superiority  may  prove 
disastrously  untenable.  Finally,  they  argue 
that,  even  should  the  religious  sense  be  in 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM         171 

any  way  beneficial  to  individual  or  society, 
it  is  none  the  less  the  production  of  the 
environment  and  is  not  essential  in  the 
nature  of  man. 

In  conclusion  of  my  claim  as  to  the  reality 
of  the  religious  sense  I  must  detain  you 
for  a  few  minutes,  while  I  answer  these 
two  objections,  the  first  being  (a)  that  the 
sense  is  not  real  because  many  do  not,  or 
think  they  do  not,  possess  it ;  and  the  second 
(&)  that  the  sense  is  merely  an  artificial 
product  of  an  artificial  environment,  and  is 
not  natural  to  man. 

(a)  Assuming  for  the  moment  that  I  am 
dealing  with  one  really  devoid  of  the  religious 
sense — that  is,  of  conscious  ethical  obliga- 
tion towards  any  idea  beyond  the  needs  of 
individual  or  society — I  find  I  am  compelled 
to  consider  either  that  he  is  incapable  of 
seeing  the  very  data  of  our  discussion,  or 


172  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

that  myself  am  illogical  in  producing  purely 
unreal  fact  for  argument.  But  if  the  sense 
be  real,  it  stands  to  reason  that  he  is  beyond 
the  pale  of  understanding  that  it  is  so.  No 
argument  of  a  Tennyson  will  make  one 
whose  soul  dwells  only  within  the  limitations 
of  a  physiological  laboratory  understand  the 
truth  lying  in  poetry.  No  amount  of  evi- 
dence adduced  by  the  lark  could  make 
the  mole  believe  that  the  light  of  heaven 
was  better  than  all  the  earthy  advantages 
denied  to  the  winged  priest  of  the  sun  : 
either  the  lark  is  a  fool  or  the  mole  is 
demented.  Either  the  poet  trespasses 
beyond  the  confines  of  reason  or  the 
physiologist  is  enslaved  by  an  unenterprising 
contentment  with  his  prison-walls.  Either, 
I  repeat,  the  poet  or  the  physiologist  is 
insane :  a  point  for  our  determination  of 
prime  importance.  But  since  there  be  poets 


THE   RELIGION  OF   FREEDOM     •    173 

who  are  wise  and  physiologists  who  at  times 
walk  the  meadows  in  delight,  they  may  find 
an  agreement,  if  they  will,  deep  in  their 
common  nature. 

I  very  much  question,  moreover,  if  the 
sense  is  really  absent  in  any  who  are  sane, 
or  who  have  not  destroyed  the  nature  of 
their  fine  inheritance  by  living  in  opposition 
to  the  Law,  in  vice,  luxury,  or  cynicism. 
What  honest  man  is  there,  let  me  ask  you, 
however  much  he  may  deplore  what  he 
considers  the  lack  of  reason  in  the  churches 
or  resent  the  intolerance  of  dogmatics,  who 
is  incapable  of  rising  above  the  demands 
of  his  reason  and  tacitly  asserting  that  he 
is  servant  of  a  transcendental  law  ?  How 
so?  my  opponent  will  ask. 

Even  a  bad  man,  I  answer,  may  upon 
occasions  in  his  life  be  confronted  with  some 
deep  need  of  action  that  transcends  what 


174  THE   RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

is  called  reason  and  mundane  justification. 
Many  years  ago  men  used  to  talk  more 
about  their  personal  honour  than,  most 
fortunately,  they  do  now  ;  it  often  implied 
little  more  than  a  readiness  to  take  offence 
at  any  doubt  cast  upon  their  purity  of  motive 
or  truthfulness  of  word,  whether  such 
suspicion  was  or  was  not  justified.  It  was 
a  miserable  ideal,  because  a  mockery  of  the 
truth  ;  and  yet  it  was  perhaps  better  than 
no  ideal.  And  because  of  their  instinctive 
feeling  that  the  true  ideal  had  claims  upon 
them,  they  would  defend  its  semblance 
with  their  lives  if  need  be,  putting  its  justice 
to  the  test  of  the  sword.  I  am  not  extolling 
the  custom  any  more  than  I  would  the 
instinct  to  strike  any  man  who  stands  in 
our  way ;  but  I  do  yet  think  it  indicates 
an  innate  feeling  that  even  the  most  wretched 
and  self-serving  men  have  in  them  a  mighty 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        175 

respect  for  the  ideal  man  which  they  know 
they  represent  in  some  fashion,  however 
much  their  lives  may  contradict  it.  They 
feel,  although  inconsistently  with  reason 
and  profit,  that  whenever  the  honour  of 
a  man  is  at  stake  because  an  accusation, 
just  or  unjust,  is  allowed  to  pass  unchallenged, 
they  must  risk  their  lives  in  defence  of  the 
ideal.  Of  course,  such  a  man  never  attempts 
to  justify  his  action  in  this  way :  he  merely 
fights  because  he  is  angry  and  would  rather 
fight  than  not  do  so.  Nevertheless,  I  believe 
he  is  impelled  by  a  dim,  unreasoned  sense 
of  obligation  to  ethical  ideal,  and,  brute 
though  he  be,  will  fight  in  its  service.  Thus, 
I  say,  he  gives  evidence  of  possessing  some 
measure  of  religious  sense,  though  it  is 
purely  involuntary;  though  it  perhaps  pro- 
claims the  man  who  possesses  but  does 
not  justify  it  to  be  ethically  degraded  below 


176  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

the  sponges  of  the  ocean  or  the  flowers  of 
the  field. 

But  this  involuntary  manifestation  of  the 
strength  of  our  ideal  as  to  what  a  man 
should  be  may  take  high  place  in  action,  and, 
when  welded  to  some  understanding — that  is, 
when  fought  for  in  deliberation  and  not  in 
anger — it  becomes,  I  think,  a  potent  proof 
of  the  activity  of  the  religious  sense.  I  am 
now  supposing  the  case  of  the  virtuous 
citizen  who  yet  denies  that  he  has  any 
feeling  or  desire  for  religion.  For  instance, 
I  conceive  that  many  a  man  of  this  descrip- 
tion, if  blackmailed,  will  run  all  the  risks 
of  exposure  rather  than  sanction  the  lie 
and  insult  given  to  his  personal  honour ; 
and  in  this  virtuous  citizen  the  personal 
honour  may  truly  symbolize  the  ideal,  and 
thus  may  be  worthy  of  protection.  As  a 
good  citizen  he  will  of  course  be  strengthened 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM         177 

in  his  determination  to  face  the  accusation 
by  the  urgent  need  of  ridding  society  of 
its  enemy.  But  beyond  this,  I  believe,  is 
an  ideal  sense  of  honour  and  justice,  and 
of  obligation  to  serve  the  ideal  rather 
than  the  laws  of  expediency  and  utility, 
although  the  fulfilment  of  this  duty  may 
prove  unprofitable,  and  possibly  disastrous, 
to  a  man's  self  and  his  family. 

Again,  many  a  scoffer  at  religion,  many 
a  useless  society-lounger,  many  a  one  even 
who  degrades  his  manhood  by  driving 
women  into  hell,  may  upon  occasion  rise 
into  the  very  noblest  heights  of  voluntary 
self-sacrifice.  His  commanding  officer,  his 
regiment  or  his  country  may  demand  any 
impossible  task  they  please,  and  he  will 
face  certain  death  rather  than  betray  his 
manhood  ;  he  will  die  rather  than  surrender, 
though  the  battle  be  lost.  And  what  will 

12 


178  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

impel  him  to  such  unutilitarian  course  of 
action  ?  Nothing  whatever  but  the  religious 
sense.  Even  if  it  be  altogether  compulsive 
of  his  actions,  even  though  he  obeys  the 
high  ideal  because  something  makes  him 
do  so,  and  without  his  voluntary  consent 
to  its  urging,  it  is  no  less  evidence  of  the 
activity  of  the  religious  sense.  And  when 
such  soldier  has  a  moment  or  hour  in  which 
to  think  out  his  course  of  action,  when  he 
determines  to  sacrifice  his  life  and  renounce 
even  his  family's  need  of  him  rather  than 
see  the  honour  of  his  country  derided,  then 
he  rises,  I  think,  into  the  very  heights 
of  ethical  service,  and  does  more  for  self, 
for  country,  for  the  eternal  law  of  his  being 
than  he  or  we  have  the  faintest  conception 
of.  And  because  he  loved  honour  much, 
much  should  be  forgiven  him. 

And   correspondingly,   I    think,  no  one  of 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM         179 

us,  however  much  he  may  emotionally  or 
intellectually,  in  converse  or  in  observance, 
proclaim  his  belief  in  the  religious  sense, 
can  know  how  strong  or  how  weak  it  is 
within  him  until  he  has  been  tried  under 
fire.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  religious  sense 
is  absolutely  real,  perhaps  the  most  essen- 
tially real  of  all  our  inheritances  from  the 
unknown  ultimate  parentage  whence  we  are 
come. 

(b)  But  I  have  still  the  second  objection 
to  dispose  of— namely,  that  the  religious 
sense,  granted  it  be  an  active  force,  is  but 
the  artificial  product  of  an  artificial  environ- 
ment. This  claim  you  shall  soon  understand 
is  too  foolish  to  need  many  words. 

But  before  clearing  up  the  point — and 
I  think  it  is  of  utmost  importance  that  we 
should  do  so — I  want  to  make  perfectly  plain 
what  we  mean  by  the  word  environment.  We 


i8o  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

may  say  that  every  person  lives  in  two  worlds, 
one  inside  and  one  outside.     They  are  both 
essential  to  existence.     The  inside  world  can 
include  as  much   of  the  outside   as  it  takes 
in  ;  and   our   eyes   and   ears,   our   senses   of 
touch,   smell,    and    taste   put   us   into   com- 
munication with  this  outside  world  :  we  may 
say   they   are    messengers   who   bring   news 
of  what  is  profitable  in  the  external  world 
for   the   inner    citadel's    enlargement.      The 
more  good  things  these  messengers  bring  us, 
the  finer  grows  this  inner  life  and  the  further 
the  citadel  extends  its  walls.     Thus  does  the 
environment  contribute  to  our  inner  life,  our 
maintenance   and   growth.     To   use   another 
metaphor,    the    environment   is    the   soil   in 
which    we    live,   and    never    the   life   itself. 
And  whether  the  environment  serves  us  with 
nourishment  or  hardship,  it  is,  according  to 
the    evolutionists,   the   contention   with   and 


THE   RELIGION   OF  FREEDOM         181 

surmounting  of  environmental  difficulties  that 
have  led  to  the  growth  of  great  lives  from 
small    beginnings,   and    the    elaboration    of 
complex  species  from  a  simple  and  common 
parentage.     The   acorn  grows  into  the  oak- 
tree   because   of    the   ever-increasing    power 
of  the  roots  to  contend  with  the  hard  soil  ; 
because  of  the  increase  of  strength  to  resist 
the  wind    that   seeks  to  break  the  sapling  ; 
because   of  the   tree's   ever-growing   vitality 
to   withstand   excess   of    rain   and    hot   sun 
that  would  rot  or  wither  its  blossoms.     The 
soil  and   the  rain  and  the  sun  are  the  en- 
vironment of  the  oak-tree ;  they  operate  as 
much  in  beneficence   as   in   discipline.     For 
the   world   outside   us   affords   us   means   of 
subsistence  and  increase  of  strength  in  food 
and     drink    and     things    to    contend    with. 
Moreover,   if    ever   the   environment    proves 
too  hard  and  threatens  starvation,  be  it  to 


i82  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

our  hopes  or  to  our  mere  subsistence,  we 
suffer,  and  the  beneficent  angel,  Pain,  enters 
our  walls  to  warn  and  admonish  us.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  ever  the  environment  offers 
ease  so  great  that  we  grow  fat,  our  strength 
is  enfeebled :  then  indeed  the  power  of 
existence  may  be  so  weakened  that  we  die, 
and  this  time  perhaps  without  warning. 
Nor  can  we  forget  that  the  environment  in 
which  men  and  women  of  exalted  life  find 
their  subsistence  is  made  up  of  other  men's 
lives,  whose  homesteads  may  be  sweetly 
tended  or  overrun  with  weeds. 

Thus  we  cannot  explain  anything  by 
affirming  that  it  is  merely  the  result  of 
our  environment,  although  at  the  same  time 
we  must  admit  that  without  environment 
nothing  would  have  been  evolved.  The  eye 
could  never  have  been  created  but  for  an 
environment  of  things  to  be  seen ;  and 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        183 

things  to  be  seen  could  never  have  called 
forth  the  faculty  of  seeing  them  unless  the 
individuals  who  developed  the  visual  sense 
had,  even  before  they  could  see,  possessed 
the  germinal,  prospective  faculty  of  seeing. 
This  is  absolutely  clear  and  axiomatic,  is  it 
not  ?  If  so,  I  pray  you  keep  it  before  your 
minds  in  all  your  reflections  upon  evolution, 
heredity,  and  environment,  and  you  will,  I 
think,  find  it  a  clue  to  the  many  conflicts  of 
theory  and  dogma  with  which  we  are  beset. 
The  environment  is  essential,  but  it  is 
not  all ;  the  capacity  for  growth  in  the 
acquisition  of  function  is  essential,  but  it 
could  do  nothing  without  material.  Germinal 
possibility  and  nutritive  environment  are  the 
father  and  mother  of  all  vital  phenomena. 
The  environment  alone  can  generate  nothing. 
To  argue  that,  because  the  idea  of  religion 
is  the  result  of  an  artificial  environment 


184  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

and  therefore  not  essential  in  man's  nature, 
it  must  be  excluded  from  our  data,  were  as 
absurd  as  it  were  to  discount  the  importance 
of  the  environment  in  evolving  any  or  all 
other  items  in  his  nature.  Nor  must  we  call 
this  or  that  point  in  the  life  and  things 
surrounding  us  artificial  because  they  are 
the  work  of  man's  hands.  You  do  not  think 
the  nest  of  the  bird  is  part  of  an  artificial 
environment  because  the  bird  has  built  it ; 
nor  can  you  call  man's  houses,  markets, 
churches,  unnatural  because  he  has  built 
them ;  nor  his  clothes,  pockets,  and  gim- 
cracks  the  mere  necessities  of  an  artificial 
environment  because  he  was  not  born  with 
them  glued  to  his  back.  No  more  can  we, 
as  scientists,  study  the  nature  of  man  with- 
out seeking  to  understand  those  ideas  and 
abstractions  which  he  calls  religion  and  con- 
science ;  although,  but  for  the  environment 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        185 

which  man  has  in  part  made  for  himself,  as 
the  birds  their  nests,  they  had  never  attained 
their  present  degree  of  influence. 

Yet  nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean 

But  nature  makes  that  mean:  so,  over  that  art, 

Which  you  say  adds  to  nature,  is  an  art 

That  nature  makes  .  .  . 

The  art  itself  is  nature. 

So  that,  whatever  our  environment  does 
for  us  in  creating  our  creed,  be  this  environ- 
ment church-steeples  or  factory-chimneys ; 
however  much  influence  these  have  in  the 
manufacture  of  our  faith  or  in  persuading 
us  of  the  advantages  of  science;  the  en- 
vironment alone  has  done  nothing  for  us 
save  in  virtue  of  our  proclivities.  Yet  will 
we  accord  all  honour  to  our  mother  environ- 
ment, even  notwithstanding  the  loathsome 
stuff  she  often  physics  us  with.  For  she 
it  is  who  awakens  in  us  the  understanding 
of  great  needs.  She  puts  before  us  the 


186  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

sufferings  of  our  fellows,  and  teaches  us  the 
joy  which  comes  of  burdens  in  sympathy  ; 
she  shows  how  our  religious  sense  must 
live  and  thrive  and  even  serve  our  needs  ; 
and  she  reveals  to  us,  in  forms  of  beauty, 
the  form  and  office  of  the  Law.  She  shows 
how  we  may  live  in  truth,  how  we  may  die 
in  the  faith  that  all  is  well  with  the  Law. 
It  is  she  that  gives  strength  to  our  wavering 
inspiration  and  teaches  us  to  set  our  in- 
heritance of  hope  against  our  wages  of 
despair.  And  she  it  is  who  teaches  us  that 
we  must  work  in  service  of  ourselves  so  far 
as  the  Law  has  need  of  our  strength ;  in 
service  of  society  so  far  as  our  fellows  have 
need  of  us  and  we  of  them  ;  and  in  service, 
yet  again,  in  renunciation  of  self,  and  even 
sometimes  of  our  duties  to  the  State,  so 
far  as  we  have  need  of  freedom.  Of 
which  freedom  as  the  high  outcome  of 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        187 

the  religious  sense  I  shall  presently  speak. 
Once  and  for  all  I  dismiss  the  accusation 
that,  because  the  environment  has  had  share 
in  awakening  the  religious  sense,  the  latter 
is  to  be  discredited.  The  environment  has 
created  nothing ;  yet  nothing  that  was  ever 
created  became,  save  in  virtue  of  the 
ministrations  of  the  environment. 

And  I  think  I  have  satisfactorily  answered 
the  objection  of  those  who,  because  they  do 
not  pray  themselves,  or  because  they  witness 
insincerity  among  those  who  use  forms  of 
prayer,  deny  the  reality  of  the  religious 
sense. 

But  now  we  come  to  a  more  difficult 
question,  yet  one  which  it  is  our  need  to 
face  fairly  and  answer  truly :  for,  to  me 
at  least,  it  is  of  greater  import  than  any 
I  have  yet  put  before  you.  It  is  a  question, 
I  say,  that  must ,  be  faced  honestly ;  for  if 


1 88  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

we  shirk  it,  our  faith  and  hope  in  man  and 
God  must  go — and  then  there  is  no  mercy 
left  for  our  suffering.  We  dare  not  refuse 
to  face  any  danger  because  our  fears  have 
painted  it  in  terror ;  for  this  very  dread 
which  stands  in  our  way  may  prove  the 
only  thing  that  could  save  us  from  our 
fears  and  ourselves.  The  question  now 
before  us  is  this :  how  comes  it  about,  if  the 
religious  sense  is  intrinsic  in  life,  that  man, 
notwithstanding  his  increasing  excellence, 
seems  in  danger  of  losing  it  altogether? 

(ii).  If  the  Law  had  no  further  need  of 
its  creatures  than  the  excellence  they  would 
attain  through  acquiescing  in  renunciation 
of  self-interest,  we  should  expect  to  find,  as 
perfection  in  animal  evolution  advances,  an 
increasing  evidence  of  dutiful  co-operation 
in  fulfilling  the  ideals  of  the  Law.  And  by 
the  time  that  man — babe  of  a  million  years' 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        189 

pregnancy — was    born    into    the    world,    he 
should,  we  may  well  argue,  manifest  a  pos- 
sibility of  perfection  in  his  prospective  man- 
hood.    He   should,  I   mean  to  affirm,  if  the 
strength  of  the  religious  sense  was  growing 
in  him  in  step  equal  to  his  intellectual  and 
corporeal    excellence,   give    increasingly   de- 
finite evidence  of  its  power  to  rule  his  life. 
The   automatic   religious   sense   should   give 
unequivocal  indication  of  its  expanse  into  a 
conscious  ethical  sense.     The  religious  sense 
and   its   influence   in   ruling    individual   and 
co-operative   life   is    perfect   in   sponge    and 
flower ;    and    in    many    higher    forms,   such 
as   the    communities   of  insects   of  which    I 
shall   speak   presently,   obedience   to   a    law 
transcending     personal     needs    becomes    in- 
creasingly    manifest.       Nevertheless,     when 
man  is  considered  as  a  species,  that  is,  from 
the   point    of   view    of   such   characteristics 


190  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

as  are  common  to  every  individual,  we  must 
admit  that  the  religious  sense  seems  to  have 
degenerated  :  whether  from  lack  of  use,  or 
from  the  energies  of  life  being  devoted  to 
the  increasing  claims  of  other  functions, 
is  of  no  consequence.  For  if  the  religious 
sense  were  paramount  in  man,  as  I  main- 
tain that  it  is  in  the  bee,  guelder-rose, 
and  sponge,  it  should  have  obviated  in  his 
life  that  very  disaster  which  he  has  brought 
into  the  world  and  fostered  as  a  fine  art. 
Man,  I  say,  has  brought  sin  into  the  world, 
and  has  sought  to  make  it  desirable  and 
beautiful  that  he  may  justify  himself  and 
his  denials  of  the  Law's  impellings.  He 
has  learned  to  look  upon  service  as  hateful 
except  as  a  means  of  pleasure.  Instead 
of  striving  to  obey  in  renunciation,  he  has 
sought  to  compel  his  neighbour  to  renounce. 
He  has  even  laboured  to  prove  that 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM         191 

parasitism  is  praiseworthy:  else  how  this 
universal  desire  to  reap  where  we  have  not 
sown,  to  live  on  the  labour  of  others  ? 

At  first  sight,  I  maintain,  our  belief  in 
the  religious  sense  is  made  absurd  when  we 
see  how  it  has  failed  in  the  finest  and  latest 
outcome  of  the  Law's  operations,  when  we 
must  admit  that  man,  more  than  any  form 
of  life,  works  in  opposition  to  the  ideal  of 
his  nature,  and  brings  disaster  upon  himself 
and  his  society.  How,  we  are  driven  to  ask, 
has  this  disaster  become  possible  if  all  life 
is  still  ruled  by  the  Law  ? 

A  true  answer  ever  lies  close  to  a  right 
question.  All  life,  as  I  have  said  before, 
lives  solely  in  virtue  of  its  inspiration  to  serve 
even  in  the  humbler  offices  of  egoism  and 
altruism.  As  soon  as  these  lack  inspira- 
tion— that  is,  the  sense  of  correspondence 
with  unknown  transcendental  ideal — work 


192  THE  RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

degenerates  in  tone  and  execution,  and  fails 
to  reveal  in  its  expression  that  beauty 
which  should  demonstrate  the  reality  of  its 
obligation.  Thus  may  uninspired  work  prove 
actually  inimical  to  the  religious  sense,  and 
bring  disaster. 

He  who  claims  that  self  is  all,  or  that  the 
needs  of  society  alone  should  be  considered, 
is  uninspired,  unevolutional,  and  spends  his 
life  more  or  less  in  opposition  to  the  higher 
development  of  the  religious  sense.  Thus 
ultimately  he  may  lose  it,  and  perhaps 
become  even  incapable  of  understanding  that 
his  own  lack  of  a  thing  does  not  prove  its 
unreality  in  another.  So  that  we  may  draw 
this  conclusion  as  to  the  disaster  that  has 
befallen  us  men — that  it  has  come  about 
from  the  lack  of  inspiration  in  our  work. 
It  may  be  through  no  fault  in  a  man's 
nature  that  the  religious  sense  has  waned  ; 


THE   RELIGION    OF   FREEDOM        193 

it  is  the  fault  partly  of  the  environment  for 
which  man  himself  is  responsible  in  large 
measure  ;  partly  because  he  has  served  self 
and  environment  without  any  feeling  of  the 
inherent  nobility  in  all  good  work. 

(iii).  But,  you  will  tell  me,  I  have  given 
you  no  explanation  of  the  fact  that  the 
religious  sense,  the  sense  of  obligation  to  an 
eternal  law  in  which  we  are  as  much  and 
as  immediately  interested  as  lower  forms 
of  life,  is  so  little  manifest  in  our  work. 
Why  does  not  man,  with  his  supremacy  of 
intellect,  his  command  of  the  earth  and 
sea,  his  harnessing  of  physical  forces  and 
driving  them  chained  to  his  chariot  of 
progress,  give  unequivocal  proof  of  the 
reality  as  well  as  the  ideality  of  his  needs 
in  the  transcendental  ?  I  have  already 
suggested  that  the  explanation  is  found  in 
man's  lack  of  inspiration  to  perform  his 

13 


194  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

simplest  of  duties  in  a  strenuous  obedience. 
Yet  this  answer,  you  will  rightly  object,  is 
no  explanation  of  the  fact,  seeing  that  it  is 
but  a  shifting  of  responsibility  of  failure  from 
man's  shoulders  on  to  the  Law  which  should 
give  him  the  needed  inspiration.  If  the 
Law,  you  contend,  had  but  continued  to 
inspire  man  as  it  inspires  the  lowly  things 
of  life,  he  had  not  stumbled  upon  his 
disaster ;  for  the  Law  would  never  have 
allowed  the  sense  of  obligation  to  the  ideal 
to  grow  weak  within  him. 

Your  contention  is  just  indeed,  and,  in 
other  form,  it  is  but  the  question  which 
every  agnostic  raises  for  his  vindication ; 
it  is  but  the  question  which,  to  my  mind 
at  any  rate,  if  it  cannot  be  truthfully 
and  convincingly  answered,  justifies  the 
fool  who  said  in  his  heart,  "  There  is 
no  God." 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM         195 

Many  a  fine  man,  jealous,  passionately 
jealous,  for  the  dignity  of  the  ideal  God 
whom  he  would  worship  in  high  devotion 
of  service  and  renunciation  if  he  could  but 
find  Him  proclaimed  in  all  His  works,  yet 
declares  that  he  cannot  believe,  because  of 
the  sin  and  suffering  in  the  world.  If  God 
were  just  and  merciful,  omnipotent  and  for- 
bearing, he  says,  He  would  never  have 
permitted  sin  to  take  hold  upon  His  creatures 
and  wreck  their  lives  ;  if  each  innocent  child 
had  a  soul  which  God  had  given,  He  would 
strike  down  all  who  drive  these  little 
ones  before  them  into  misery  and  hell ;  if 
God  exists,  He  is  either  not  omnipotent  or 
not  all-loving,  or  He  would  not  permit  vice 
and  suffering.  And  this  is  the  argument 
which,  I  say,  we  must  squarely  face,  or  give 
up  all  hope  of  honest  understanding. 

I    will    give    you    the    answer    which    to 


196  THE   RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

myself  at  least  has  made  faith  possible — nay, 
which  has  made  it  imperative  and  final : 
and  I  hold  no  brief  for  the  Almighty.  If 
He  is  all  some  hope  and  believe,  He 
needs  no  special  pleading  :  my  desire  is  but 
knowledge  of  the  Truth. 

In  answer  to  this  wide-prevailing  argument 
against  God's  love  and  wisdom,  I  will  re- 
turn to  the  previous  form  of  the  question  : 
How  has  the  Law  so  failed  in  man  that  it 
has  seemingly  left  him  bereft  of  this  most 
essential  of  all  life's  attributes,  the  in- 
stinctive knowledge  of  his  dependence  upon 
and  obligation  to  the  eternal  law  ? 

The  Law's  ideal  in  evolving  man,  after 
all,  may  be  higher  than  the  agnostic's  ideal 
of  what  should  imply  a  perfect  God.  The 
Law's  aim  is  that  man  should  serve  in  a 
manner  more  excellent  than  can  be  accom- 
plished by  the  relative  automatism  of  lesser 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM         197 

created  things.  The  Law,  for  the  perfecting 
of  creation,  has  need  of  a  race  of  men  who 
shall  be  great  in  so  far  as  each  one  shall 
manifest  the  image  of  God  in  his  person. 
The  Law's  design  of  the  great  structure 
which  man,  like  the  sponge-sarcode,  is  un- 
consciously building,  needs  for  its  accom- 
plishment an  active  understanding  of  the 
particular  work  demanded  of  each  handi- 
craftsman. 

If  you  read  Ruskin  you  will  realize  at 
once  what  I  mean.  He  is  at  pains  to  show 
us  that  in  every  great  example  of  Gothic 
architecture  not  only  is  the  plan  of  the 
architect  noble,  but  each  individual  work- 
man, notwithstanding  his  lack  of  knowledge 
of  the  final  outcome,  is  inspired  by  the  great 
idea  and  intent  of  the  whole  :  every  line  of 
colour  in  fresco,  every  blow  of  chisel  on 
stone,  every  bit  of  gaudy  glass  set  in 


198  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

mosaic  symbol,  gives  evidence  of  the  intelli- 
gence and  willing  inspiration  of  each  labourer. 
The  architect's  idea  quickened  each  workman 
with  his  own  creating  power,  and  each  strove 
with  each,  as  he  strove  with  the  formless 
stone  or  naked  wall,  to  excel :  not  so  much 
that  he  might  earn  his  wage,  as  masons 
are  requited  now  for  their  exercise  of  an 
automatic  and  mechanical  skill,  but  that  he 
might  own  a  share  in  the  completion  of  a 
mighty  work,  even  though  he  would  perhaps 
not  live  to  see  it. 

The  Law  needs  for  its  work — which  is  the 
ultimate  excellence  and  joy  of  all  creation 
— labourers  that  are  freed  of  their  chains, 
who  have  in  them  the  possibility  of  excelling 
the  ungrowing,  mechanical  average  of  work. 
This  cannot  be  done  by  the  sponge-sarcode 
or  by  the  guelder-rose,  or  even  by  the  bee. 
The  Law  has  delegated  to  man  its  own 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM         199 

power,  and  has  freed  him  of  his  chains, 
that  he  may  serve  in  freedom,  and  proclaim, 
in  the  beauty  of  his  labour,  the  religion  of 
freedom. 

Hence,  notwithstanding  its  appearance  of 
limitation,  the  Law  may  yet  be  justified  ; 
and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that,  in  giving 
freedom  to  all,  option  has  become  the  birth- 
right not  only  of  those  masons  who  create 
beauty,  but  also  of  those  who  mar  their 
marble  and  cast  the  blame  upon  the 
Law's  limitations.  The  Law  has  turned  its 
workshop  into  a  co-operative,  profit-sharing 
concern  of  unlimited  liability,  to  the  spoiling 
of  much  of  its  work,  although  possibly  to 
the  ultimate  justification  of  its  initial  and 
prevailing  idea. 

Is  the  omnipotence  of  God  then  limited 
in  His  work?  Must  we,  because  of  His 
creatures'  freedom  to  help  or  to  hinder, 


200  THE  RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

judge  Him  to  lack  power,  mercy,  and 
wisdom?  Could  He  not  have  made  all 
men  free  and  good,  and  thus  His  work 
perfect,  without  the  suffering,  misery,  and 
failure  which  stand  forth  from  all  the  fairness 
of  the  beautiful  earth,  and  appear  to  deny 
that  the  essence  of  life  is  right  working? 

To  make  man  good  without  effort  of  his 
own  were  a  denial  of  his  freedom,  for  he 
would  have  no  choice  and  be  still  chained. 
And  it  may  yet  be  found  that  the  only 
limitation  of  eternal  power  must  be  in  God's 
inability  to  do  what  is  second  best,  even 
although  the  fool  thinks  he  could  better 
believe  if  he  had  no  option  in  the  design 
of  the  marble  he  must  carve. 

The  only  form  of  society  in  which  sin  and 
evil  could  be  impossible  would  be  one  like 
the  insect  communities'.  Look  at  the  bees. 
We  find  in  them  the  type  of  utter  devotion 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        201 

to  labour  in  service — to  service  in  renuncia- 
tion. Seldom  resting,  never  complaining, 
they  fill  their  day  full  of  work  as  their  cells 
full  of  honey.  Like  these,  too,  each  day  is 
closed  as  an  accomplishment  in  perfection. 
The  personal  interest  of  each  bee  is  an  un- 
known factor  in  the  community,  and  each 
enjoys  its  life  in  involuntary,  ungrudged 
slavery,  inspired  by  an  unconscious  instinct 
of  the  hive's  needs.  The  queen  sacrifices  her 
freedom  and  delight  in  flower  and  sun  that 
the  Law  may  be  served.  The  drones  wait  in 
uninterested  passivity  till  one  among  them 
shall  be  chosen  for  sacrificing  his  life  in 
the  office  of  fertilization ;  and  only  that  the 
needs  of  the  Law  may  be  fulfilled.  The 
queen  invites  all  drones  to  fly  with  her,  that 
she  may  select  the  fittest  for  the  Law's  need  ; 
and  those  who  are  rejected  return  to  the  hive 
to  be  hustled,  starved,  tortured,  and  killed  by 


202  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

the  workers,  because  the  possibility  of  the 
drones'  use  to  the  community  is  over.  And 
these  drones  do  not  even  resist,  for  it  is  the 
will  of  their  law  that  they  die.  Impelled  by 
a  disinterested  automatism,  they  have  no 
wish  but  submission. 

And    so   it   is    throughout   this   common- 
wealth of  bees.     The  hive  has  attained  the 
happy  condition  of  a  perfect  socialism ;  their 
work  is  the  perfect  outcome  of  a  high  degree 
of  intelligence,   and  their   lives  are  devoted, 
with  microscopic  joy  and  quaint  semblance 
of  virtue,  to  the  needs  of  the  whole.     And 
all  their  high  intelligence,  their  mathematical 
precision    of   work,    their    devoted   altruism 
and    unemotional     transcendentalism,     have 
given  them  nothing  of  what  man  prizes  as 
his     birthright — Freedom — and     through    it 
consciousness  of   choice   and    knowledge   of 
consequences.     Yet1  man  casts  this   priceless 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        203 

gift  in  the  mud,  because  of  the  obligations  it 
endows  him  with ;  and,  having  sullied  its 
beauty,  he  then  looks  upon  it  as  a  proof  that 
its  donor  was  neither  good  nor  powerful.  It 
is  because  of  this  very  freedom  to  do  or  to 
err  that  sin  has  come  into  our  existence. 

Would  omnipotence  be  better  exemplified, 
I  ask  you,  if  men  were  no  more  than  bees, 
obeying  because  they  must  instead  of 
because  they  may  ?  Which  indicates  the 
greater  power  in  creating :  the  bees  with 
perfect  subservience  to  the  religious  sense,  or 
man  with  freedom  to  grow  in  fellowship  with 
his  Maker,  even  though  this  very  freedom 
bring  with  it  the  possibility  of  living  in 
opposition  to  ideal  ? 

(iv).  Once  upon  a  time  two  great  chess- 
players entered  upon  a  contest  that  for  all 
time  should  determine  their  skill.  The  laws 
of  the  game  were  of  their  own  devising  and 


204  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

different  from  those  now  holding:  for  each 
was  to  carve  his  own  men  to  the  best  of  his 
ability  ;  and  the  skill  he  manifested  in  his 
handicraft  was  to  be  judged  equal  with  his 
control  of  the  game.  Each,  moreover,  was 
to  play  on  a  separate  board ;  and  wise  men 
were  to  be  brought  to  sit  as  umpires  whose 
judgment  should  be  final.  Now  each 
player  carved  his  men,  his  kings,  queens, 
bishops,  knights,  castles,  and  pawns,  with 
skill  the  like  of  which  had  not  been 
seen  before :  for  an  eternity  was  given  to 
each  for  his  work.  But  when  all  was  in 
readiness  and  the  game  should  begin,  none 
could  be  found  wise  enough  for  umpires : 
though  not  a  few  volunteered.  And  the 
players,  for  lack  of  better  critics,  were 
constrained  to  this  strange  agreement,  that 
their  own  chessmen,  whom  they  had 
fashioned,  should  be  their  judges. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        205 

For  awhile  the  skill  of  the  players 
seemed  equal,  and  the  game  progressed  in 
such  profundity  of  thought  and  subtlety 
of  invention  that  the  chessmen,  who,  you 
must  believe,  were  endowed  with  some 
understanding,  were  so  amazed  that  they 
doubted  whether  they  did  not  themselves 
initiate  their  excursions  and  bold  doings. 
But  before  many  aeons  had  passed  over 
this  wonderful  game,  the  play  of  the  two 
master-craftsmen  became  strangely  different. 
The  skill  of  him  who  held  the  red  men 
remained  as  it  had  begun.  His  men  he 
could  count  upon  to  do  as  he  bid  them, 
and,  in  given  circumstances,  to  act  as  they 
had  done  a  thousand  years  before.  His 
chessboard  remained  as  fair  and  unsullied 
as  when  it  had  first  left  his  workshop  at 
the  beginning ;  and  his  play  was  such 
good  play  that  it  could  hardly  be  bettered. 


2o6  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

The  board  was  so  bright  in  colour,  sunny 
in  light,  pleasant  to  live  upon,  that  the  red 
chessmen  desired  none  better,  for  they  also 
remained,  as  they  had  begun,  masterpieces 
of  skill.  And  they  knew  that  they  were  so. 

But  the  player  who  owned  the  white 
men  was  different ;  and  his  work  differed, 
though  in  high  honour  he  still  conformed 
with  the  rules  each  had  agreed  upon.  As 
he  watched  the  meek  submission  of  his 
men  and  their  obedience  to  his  will,  he, 
strange  and  purposeless  though  it  appeared 
to  his  opponent,  learned  to  love  his  poor 
carvings  of  ivory,  and  in  so  doing  he 
came  to  desire  something  beyond  the  exercise 
of  his  own  skill  and  personal  power.  He, 
foolishly,  as  was  accounted  by  his  opponent 
and  indeed  as  appeared  to  all  the  red  men 
as  well  as  to  many  of  his  own,  taught  his 
people,  kings  with  their  queens,  knights  in 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        207 

their   castles,   bishops  ministering   to  pawns, 
to  understand  the  game,  so  that  they  should 
choose  their  own  moves.     They  should  think 
out    where    their    own    safety    lay,    because 
their  master  had  need  of  them  ;  they  should 
look  how   best   to   serve  those  having  need 
of  their  help,  so  that  their  master  could  not 
repent   him   of  the  freedom   he   had  given ; 
and    lastly,    they    should,    in    such    service, 
attain   a   higher    understanding   to   work   in 
co-operation   with    himself,   the   designer    of 
them    and   their    laws.      Thus    should    they 
deepen  the  intent  of  the  game,  and  choose 
whether  or  no  they  would  help  their  master 
to  victory. 

But,  you  must  observe,  there  arrived  an 
inevitable  consequence,  which  had  indeed 
been  foreseen  by  the  carver  of  his  freed 
chessmen.  Though  they  were  still  com- 
pelled to  move  within  certain  rules  and  limits 


208  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

prescribed  by  the  game,  which  rules  and 
limits  could  not  be  transgressed  without 
personal  as  well  as  social  disaster,  they  yet 
had  choice  in  their  moves  and  their  motives. 
And  because  many  moved  foolishly  and 
many  lazily,  because  some  even  chose  to 
deny  their  obligation  to  obey  the  rules, 
disaster  seemed  to  assail  the  game  of  that 
player  who  loved  his  men.  And  the  men 
of  both  sides  declared  him  to  be  weak  in 
power  and  foolish  in  desire  ;  some  even 
said  that,  had  he  loved  his  men  as  he 
pretended,  he  would  have  kept  them  rigidly 
tied  to  their  obligations. 

And  the  board  of  the  white  men  grew 
strange  in  appearance  and  mightily  unin- 
telligible. The  squares  became  blurred  ;  for 
the  white-daisied  meadows  grew  black  with 
soot  belched  from  the  tall  objects  which 
the  castles  had  become,  and  which  the  poor 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        209 

pawns   half  worshipped  as  the   emblems   of 
success    and    progress.      The    shady   woods 
were    cut   down   that   fuel    might   be   found 
for    the   feeding   of    the   chimneys    and   the 
fouling   of   the   meadows.      The   rivers   that 
marked   out  the   squares  on   the  land    grew 
rank  with  horrors   that,  in   fighting  for  life, 
had  found  only  death ;  and  the  blue  waters 
became  red  with  the  streams  of  greed  and 
hatred   that   poured   into   them.      How   so  ? 
Because  some  of  the  pawns,  if  one  among 
them  seemed  more  favoured  of  their  master, 
would    hate,   starve,   and    slay    that    fellow. 
Some  kings,  you  must  observe,  grew  tyrants, 
and  sought  to  take   freedom   from  any  who 
questioned  the  regal  right  of  exacting  service. 
Some  knights  grew  lazy  because  they,  having 
turned  their  castles  of  strength  into  chimneys 
of  commercial  success,  enticed  the  pawns  to 
fuel  their  furnaces,  and  thus  save  themselves 

14 


210  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

from    their  birthright   to  work  and  be    free. 

And    some    bishops,    who    claimed    best    to 

understand    the    will    of    the    master,    grew 

greedy  also  of  power,  and  sought,  like  the 

kings,  to  rob  the  men  of  their  freedom,  and 

cast    their    minds,   if    not    their    bodies,   in 

chains.     They  said,  "  The  master  may  have 

given   you   freedom    of  conscience,    but    we 

must   regulate  it !     He    has   certainly  given 

you  power  of  reason,  but  we  must  endorse 

it ! "     Yet,  notwithstanding  all  this  seeming 

disaster,  the  master  worked  on  in  the  strength 

of  his  deep  intent.     "  The  game  is  not  yet 

played  ! "  he  cried  ;  "  have  we  not  a  million 

years  before   us?     If  I   can   show  one  good 

pawn,  bishop,  or  king  who  has  justified  the 

freedom  I  have  given,  he  is  worth  more  than 

all   the   automata  ;    he  justifies   all  my  own 

disappointments,  all    the   hard   years   of  my 

labour." 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        211 

But  the  master  of  the  red  men,  the  red  men 
themselves,  and  indeed  many  of  the  white, 
railed  at  the  good  master  of  the  white  men 
because  their  whiteness  was  stained.  They 
cried  that,  had  he  been  omnipotent,  he  had 
saved  his  pawns  from  the  tyrannies  of  those 
he  had  ordained  for  their  guidance ;  that, 
had  he  been  all-loving,  he  had  never  allowed 
them  to  grow  greedy  and  lazy  ;  that,  had 
he  been  omniscient,  he  had  endowed  them 
with  such  wisdom  as  would  have  made  them 
understand  the  folly  of  bartering  the  bread 
of  life  for  the  Dead-Sea  apples  of  starvation. 

And  the  white  men  grew  stronger,  more 
powerful,  and  regardless  of  that  freedom 
which  was  responsible  for  their  growth. 
Nay,  they  even  denied  its  reality.  They 
sold  their  bodies  in  slavery,  for  the  sake 
of  ease  and  unearned  power,  to  a  Mammon 
that  gave  them  gold  ;  they  sold  their  minds 


212  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

to  spare  them  the  labour  of  thought ;  they 
submitted  to  false  churches  that,  distrusting 
their  privileges,  feared  freedom  because  of 
its  abuse  in  licence. 

And  there  the  fable  ends. 

Must  I,  in  conventional  manner,  declare 
the  moral  ?  It  is  as  brief  as  it  is  obvious. 
In  the  master  of  the  white  men,  who  soiled 
their  gardens  and  sullied  their  pristine  purity, 
is  suggested  the  idea  of  a  beneficent  and 
omnipotent  Creator ;  while  in  the  maker  of 
the  red  men  is  symbolized  the  sort  of  god 
whom  the  agnostic  would  have  selected  to 
obviate  sin  and  suffering.  And  I  have 
ended  my  fable  at  this  point,  for  it  merges 
into  the  actual  story  of  human  growth 
and  human  failure.  And  hardly,  I  think, 
were  it  worth  while  pursuing  our  search  for 
the  truth,  whether  in  Nature,  or  in  men's 
hearts,  or  in  scriptures,  but  for  one  fact 


THE   RELIGION  OF   FREEDOM        213 

in  our  history  that  has  given  us  knowledge 
of  the  import  of  things.  You  know  what 
this  fact  is — the  coming  among  us  of  One 
whose  personal  life  was  inspired  by  law 
and  revealed  in  beauty;  whose  social  life 
was  inspired  by  love  of  the  children  of 
men  and  revealed  in  sorrow  because  they 
rejected  the  truth  ;  whose  oneness  with 
eternal  Law  transcending  all  mundane 
obligation  was  revealed  in  His  sacrifice, 
and  His  going  from  those  He  loved,  that 
they  might  grow  and  learn  freedom  in 
faith. 

And  now  we  profess  devotion  to  Him  and 
the  truth  with  which  He  inspired  men  ; 
and  the  fact,  for  all  the  poverty  of  its  fruit, 
is  declared  in  the  churches  and  hospitals 
with  which  our  cities  abound.  Yet,  despite 
the  money  we  give  and  the  noble  thoughts 
that  inspire  those  who  teach;  despite  the 


214  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

great  and  small  deeds  in  mercy  of  many 
who  obey,  most  of  us  still  maintain,  tacitly 
or  openly,  that  we  cannot,  in  the  strange 
necessities  of  this  age,  take  the  injunctions 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  quite  literally. 
And  why  ?  Because  we  are  afraid  of  taking 
in  both  hands  and  holding  to  our  heart  the 
priceless  gift  of  freedom.  As  it  appears  to 
me,  the  more  profoundly  we  study  fact,  and 
the  more  humbly  we  wait  upon  the  mini- 
strations of  pure  science,  the  more  sure  shall 
we  be  that  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  pro- 
claims the  elemental  law  of  life  with  its 
prospective,  evolutional  possibilities  of  eternal 
growth  in  ever  increasing  freedom. 

I  suspect  that  some  of  you  men  of  science 
will  think  I  am  exceeding  the  province  of 
my  lecture  in  speaking  in  such  manner  ;  and 
I  suspect  also  that  some  of  you  students 
of  theology  will  feel  that  I  should  leave  it 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        215 

to  others,  more  learned  and  more  devout 
than  myself,  to  speak  of  sacred  things.  But 
if  we  would  be  scientific  and  honest,  we  dare 
not  disregard  one  item  in  man's  nature  or 
mode  of  life,  whether  we  consider  it  as 
artificial,  or  fanciful,  or  as  the  result  of  his 
fears.  All  things  and  all  appearances  of 
things  are  facts ;  and,  to  the  truly  scientific, 
man's  renunciation  of  self  is  as  real  a  fact, 
though  prompted  by  ideals,  as  his  crimes, 
though  accounted  for  by  the  faults  of 
ancestry  and  environment. 

Nor  must  the  student  of  theology  think 
that  religion  lies  beyond  the  pale  of  the 
scientist's  work.  He  who  best  trusts  his 
religion  will  least  resent  its  being  studied 
with  the  scalpel,  test-tube,  and  microscope 
of  scientific  precision.  It  is,  I  believe,  by 
the  scientific  method  that  we  shall  serve  best 
the  philosophic  understanding  of  the  religious 


216  THE  RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

sense;  and,  if  by  such  method  we  find 
that  all  our  inexplicable  hopes  take  origin 
in  the  depths  of  an  eternal  and  omnipresent 
Personality,  our  gain  will  not  be  the  less 
real  that  its  proof  lies  beyond  the  confines 
of  our  mere  intellects.  Yet  I  am  not 
saying  that  it  is  necessary  for  all  men  to 
study  these  things  in  the  scientific  spirit. 
Some,  I  am  prepared  to  believe,  know 
without  proof;  some,  we  know,  hope  with- 
out adducing  good  reason.  Such  we  need 
not  seek  to  help,  seeing  that  they  may, 
notwithstanding  their  silence,  have  eyes  of 
the  eagle  ;  while  we  who  talk  have  perhaps 
but  the  atrophied  eyes  of  the  mole. 

I  have  yet  more  to  say  about  this  freedom 
which  I  would  have  you  understand  is  the 
final  outcome  of  our  perfecting  in  the  re- 
ligious sense.  I  want  to  give  you  a  clue 
to  its  study  in  the  history  of  our  State  and 


THE  RELIGION  OF   FREEDOM        217 

religion,  these  being,  I  maintain,  inseparable 
in  their  growth.  This  clue  will  serve  for 
the  further  strengthening  of  our  belief  that 
freedom  is  as  essential  in  our  religion  as 
renunciation  and  service.  At  the  same 
time,  I  shall,  I  hope,  make  you  understand 
how  distinct,  in  point  of  natural  law,  is 
freedom  from  licence,  power  from  tyranny, 
chanty  from  interested  altruism,  and  pure 
egoism  from  self-seeking ;  and  then  I  shall 
have  done. 

The  growth  of  the  spirit  of  freedom 
throughout  the  history  of  man  is  closely 
identified  with  the  growth  of  power.  Even 
the  power  of  France  after  the  Revolution 
was  due  rather  to  the  freedom  of  the  people 
than  to  the  ambition  of  Napoleon.  That 
the  abuse  of  power  is  one  of  the  dangers 
in  freedom  is  no  argument  against  the  merit 
of  freedom.  To  this  I  shall  again  refer. 


218  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

I  suspect,  moreover,  when  the  evolution 
theory  comes  to  be  studied  with  a  fine 
philosophic  spirit,  imbued  with  the  knowledge 
of  these  latter  days,  that  the  whole  process 
of  increasing  excellence  will  be  found  to  be 
inspired  by  one  great  principle,  germinal  in 
the  beginning,  fruit-bearing  in  its  consum- 
mation ;  and  that  this  great  principle  is  the 
passionate  spirit  in  all  life,  the  irresistible, 
undeniable  spirit,  to  free  itself  from  the 
trammels  of  its  environment,  even  though  this 
environment  were  made  by  life  for  its  own 
enlargement ;  even  though,  as  the  very 
measure  of  its  success,  life  must  make  for 
itself  new  and  larger  environments  for  its 
labour,  and  must  forge  new  chains  to  awaken 
new  needs  for  the  increase  of  freedom. 

Growth  itself  may  be  defined  as  a  dis- 
content with  existing  conditions  and  a 
rising  above  them  into  larger  opportunity. 


PLATE  VI. 


SECTION    OF   THE   PEARLY  NAUTILUS 

(Nautilus  potnpilius) 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        219 

Conceive  of  growth  or  evolution  in  the  light 
of  a  simple  illustration.     This  pearly  nautilus 
(Plate  VI.),  as  you  see,  is  a  series  of  chambers 
strung    together,   as    it    were,   by   a   narrow 
passage  running  through  the  centre  of  each, 
but  otherwise  entirely  separate.     The  mollusc 
that  built  it  occupied  each  successive  chamber 
as  it  grew  bigger,  leaving   the  smaller   and 
building  the  larger   on   the   same   plan,   but 
with    a     larger     sense    of    its     possibilities. 
Keeping   hold,  with  a  strange   affection    for 
its  bygone  history,  of  the  chambers  it   has 
left  for  ever,  the  mollusc,  unknown  to  itself, 
constructs   a   beautiful   whole — beautiful    be- 
cause, declaring  in  its  symmetry  and  shape 
some  law   of  spiral  growth   in  evolution,  it 
proclaims  a  deep  truth,  in  the  simplicity  of 
which  we  and  it  hold  fellowship. 

But   whether   or   no   we   regard   evolution 
in  life  as  a  freeing  from  existing  forces  that 


220  THE  RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

hinder  at  the  same  time  that  they  awaken 
our  ideals,  the  whole  of  our  political  and 
religious  history  in  England  is  a  story  of 
evolution.  And  it  is  the  same  scheme  of 
evolution  as  of  old,  though  we  study  it  in 
these  latter  days  by  the  light  of  facts  handed 
down  to  us, by  letter  of  pen,  as  distinguished 
from  geological  imprints  on  rocky  pages. 
Our  national  story  is  the  history  of  the 
assertion  and  evolution  of  our  rights  in  that 
freedom  for  which  we  have  been  foremost 
among  men  in  staking  our  lives. 

If  our  few  great  men,  rather  than  an  innate 
spirit  inspiring  the  people  to  progress,  seem 
to  have  made  our  story,  it  is  only  so  because 
they  stand  forth  as  the  more  potent  ex- 
pressions of  the  fire  that  is  always  burning, 
sometimes  smouldering  and  sometimes 
aflame,  in  the  community's  depths.  Thus 
Stephen  Langton,  first  among  the  subscribing 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        221 

witnesses  of  Magna  Charta,  proclaimed  his 
belief  in  ideal  and  essential  rights  to  freedom 
when  he,  with  a  boldness  greater  than  can 
be  realized  by  us  who  have  done  with 
papal  assumption,  refused  to  publish  the 
excommunication  of  his  colleagues.  Great 
though  were  his  life  and  service  to  Truth, 
he  was  but  one  bigger  voice  among  the 
clamouring  multitude  who  all  believed  in  the 
principles  for  which  he  sacrificed  his  see 
rather  than  betray.  Simon  de  Montfort, 
again,  was  spokesman  among  the  barons 
because  of  his  greater  daring  and  stronger 
belief  in  their  need  to  crush  the  tyrannies 
of  the  throne.  But  why  ?  Because  his  sense 
of  obligation  to  birthright  was  not  content 
with  smouldering,  but  must  flame  up  in 
action.  His  contempt  for  the  Pope  and 
rapacities  of  the  throne  led  to  the  means 
of  our  political  freedom — those  Houses  of 


222  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

Parliament  which  may  yet  justify  our  de- 
mocracy when  its  evolution  has  outstepped 
greed  and  mundane  expediencies. 

Our  political  evolution  is  inseparable  from 
our  religious  freedom  ;  and  I  suspect  it  is 
with  a  deep  sense  of  the  essential  fitness  of 
this  relation  that  we  hold  to  the  union 
of  Church  and  State,  though  so  often  each 
seeks  to  support  the  other's  edifice  with 
mimic  buttress,  as  if  impelled  by  fear  of 
a  common  danger  in  change  and  growth. 
Dangers  there  must  be  ever  ahead  of  us 
if  we  be  free  men  to  carve  our  future,  to 
work  out  our  political  and  religious  salvation. 
But  the  dangers  will  never  be  more  than  are 
profitable  for  us  to  contend  with,  and  cannot 
be  compared  for  a  moment  with  the  disasters 
attendant  upon  stagnation  and  quelling  of 
the  life  that  must  be  always  agrowing  if  it 
would  live. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        223 

Each  step  of  advance  in  our  growth  has 
been  a  step  onwards  in  emancipation  ;  and 
because  of  the  frequent,  though,  I  think, 
but  temporary,  failure  of  our  ideals,  we  need 
not  doubt  that  the  religious  sense  is  inspiring 
us  to  this  emancipation.  Even  in  the  Tudor 
days  the  increasing  power  of  the  throne  was 
not  incompatible  with  the  growing  freedom 
of  mind,  the  strengthening  of  ideal,  and  the 
reality  of  the  religious  sense.  In  the  Great 
Rebellion,  again,  the  inherent  union  of  this 
sense  with  the  feeling  after  political  freedom 
as  a  moral  necessity,  was  hardly  shaken  by 
the  tyrannies  of  an  army,  many  of  whose 
privates  were  real  saints  and  generals  true 
patriots ;  nor  yet  by  the  senseless  restraints 
imposed  by  the  shackles  of  Calvinism  upon 
a  people  craving  for  freedom. 

Again,  in  the  days  of  the  Restoration,  when 
the  religious  sense  slumbered  and  piety  was 


224  THE   RELIGIOUS    SENSE 

derided ;  when  the  people,  longing  once 
more  for  colour  and  gaiety,  with  liberty  to 
choose  and  expand,  turned  from  the  deep 
inspiration  of  their  fathers  and  accepted 
the  licence  of  court  negligence  as  the  only 
desirable  alternative — even  then  the  spirit 
of  freedom  was  still  moving,  in  spite  of 
political  decay  and  fashionable  immorality. 
As  if  the  knowledge  of  man's  obligation 
to  assert  his  rights  were  a  vital  force  that 
must  have  outlet,  the  spirit  of  freedom  leapt 
into  life  and  took  form  in  scientific  investiga- 
tion. For  although  the  Royal  Society  had 
first  been  inaugurated  some  fifteen  years 
before  the  accession  of  Charles  the  Second, 
it  was  the  black  days  of  his  shadow  which 
granted  its  Charter  (1660);  and  the  intent 
of  the  early  Fellows,  as  is  the  intent  of 
those  in  our  day,  was  the  pursuit  of 
knowledge  after  the  methods  of  Francis 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        225 

Bacon,  "  in  a  spirit  admirably  com- 
pounded," says  Macaulay,  "  of  audacity  and 
sobriety." 

And  I  maintain  that,  dark  though  those 
days  were,  the  desire  for  freedom  joined 
hands  with  the  religious  sense,  and  inspired 
the  pure  investigation  of  Nature,  untram- 
melled by  self-interest,  money-making,  or 
advantage  to  society.  William  Harvey's 
treatise  on  the  circulation  of  the  blood  had 
indeed  appeared  some  thirty  years  earlier, 
marking  almost  the  first  real  step  towards 
founding  a  science  of  physiology  (1628); 
but  it  needed  that  common  desire  for 
knowledge  which  was  awakened  by  Bacon's 
Novum  Organum,  rather  than  academic 
learning,  to  produce  the  handful  of  great 
men  who  were  to  little  London  in  their 
day  what  her  philosophers  were  to  little 
Athens  in  the  fifth  century  B.C. — in  each 

15 


226  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

case  sufficient  to   make  great   for  all   time 
the  name  of  their  country. 

When  I  name  Newton,  first  to  unite  high 
mathematics  with  experimental  investigation  ; 
Edmund  Halley  and  John  Flamsteed,  the 
astronomers ;  Robert  Boyle,  the  father  of 
modern  chemistry  and  founder  of  the  Boyle 
lectures  ;  Sloane,  the  naturalist,  and  Wallis, 
the  mathematician  and  founder  of  the  Royal 
Society  ;  when  we  see  how  prelates,  jurists, 
statesmen,  and  princes  vied  with  one  another, 
not  merely  in  patronizing  science,  but  in 
taking  active  share  in  its  pursuit,  we  find  even 
those  days  of  waning  morality  and  aban- 
doned democracy  giving  evidence  of  some 
truth  in  desire,  and  setting  indeed  a  lesson  to 
this  age  when  science  is  pursued  as  a  means 
of  emolument,  and  preachers  of  religion 
await  in  fear  the  revelations  of  experimental 
research.  Our  science,  I  think,  to  attain  the 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        227 

highest,  must  be  pure  and  freed  from  self- 
interest,  no  less  than  must  our  work  for 
society  and  truth.  And  so  far  as  the  Royal 
Society  began  its  work  in  this  spirit,  it 
served,  I  believe,  even  in  those  days,  the 
religious  sense  which  has  never  entirely 
slept  even  in  our  times  of  direst  degradation. 
But  whatever  movement  we  have  ever 
made  that  has  tended  to  progress — and  by 
progress  we  as  philosophers  dare  not  think 
in  the  first  place  of  riches  or  extent  of 
domain — it  has  always  come  to  us  because 
some  were  found  strong  to  dare  all  in  the 
justification  of  their  faith,  and  only  because 
they  felt  within  them  that  inherent  need  of 
serving  their  ideals.  Even  if  we  assert  that 
some  great  movements  were  effected  through 
the  intensity  of  the  egoistic  sense  of  an 
individual — as,  for  instance,  in  Henry  the 
Eighth — and  that  no  spirit  of  idealism  or 


228  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

desire  for  social  advance  or  hope  for  personal 
excellence  inspired  such  a  one  to  his  course  of 
action,  I  do  not  think  it  spoils  my  argument. 
For  notwithstanding  that  king's  self-serving 
and  moral  degradation,  the  spirit  of  virtuous, 
personal  independence  so  typically  English 
was  strong  within  him.  In  daring  to  with- 
stand the  Pope,  in  daring  to  scoff  at  his  ex- 
communication, he  but  typified  the  spirit  that 
was  virile  in  our  world ;  and  for  him,  although 
a  crowned  head,  to  dare  question  the  word 
of  one  who  in  the  eyes  of  all  Christendom 
was  supreme  to  kings  and  emperors,  was  a 
noble  act,  despite  its  self-interest. 

But  the  nobility  of  Henry  lay  in  his 
egoistic  strength  of  mind  rather  than  in 
a  spiritual  force  of  soul.  It  could  not  be 
placed  alongside  the  noble  altruism  of 
the  great  commoners  of  a  century  later, 
who  taught  the  people  that  they  must  not 


THE  RELIGION   OF  FREEDOM        229 

submit  to  the  king's  prerogatives  when  these 
necessitated  wrongs  to  his  people,  nor  accept 
his  lies  as   privileged,  and  the  shackling   of 
their   liberty   as   the   will   of    God.     Neither 
can    Henry's    boldness    nor   Hampden    and 
Pym's    devotion,    great    though     their   con- 
sequences have   been  in   the  making   of  our 
Church    and    State,   rank   with   the   starved 
Monk    of     Wittenberg's    transcendentalism. 
Worn  with  self-tumult,  fastings,  and  prayer, 
yet  not   the  less  loving  life,  peace,  and  the 
fairness   of   the   earth,   Luther    stood    alone 
before    the    Diet    at   Worms,   with    all    the 
dazzling    pomp    of    Christendom   sitting   in 
judgment  of  his  heresies,  and  cried  :  "  Unless 
I   be   convinced   by  Scripture  and  reason,  I 
neither  can  nor   dare  retract   anything  ;  for 
my  conscience  is  a  captive  to  God?s  word" — 
a  creed  which   then  gave,   and  for  all   time 
has   given,   heart   to   Truth  in   her  struggle 


230  THE  RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

against  the  incrusting  dogmas  of  scholasti- 
cism ;  against  the  worship  of  forms  of 
religion,  forms  of  learning,  forms  of  science, 
which  seek  to  proclaim  their  vitality  in 
outward  and  visible  show  of  ephemeral 
grandeur. 

Believe  me,  the  principles  of  protestantism 
are  still  strong  within  us,  in  our  religion, 
our  state,  and  our  science  ;  and  they  must 
be  strong  if  we  would  grow  as  individuals  or 
as  a  nation.  And,  believe  me,  the  principles 
of  democracy  must  as  certainly  be  strong 
within  us  if  our  religious  sense  is  to  have 
freedom  to  grow.  And  when  I  say  the 
principles  of  protestantism  and  democracy,  I 
do  not  mean  to  offer  one  word  or  another 
concerning  dogmas  which  may  or  may  not 
be  the  outcome  of  these  principles.  I  do 
not  stand  in  criticism  of  the  teachings  of 
theology,  nor  do  I  pronounce  opinion  upon 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        231 

this  or  that  political  measure  or  party.  The 
principles  of  anything  are  the  germinal 
beginnings  which  gave  rise  to  that  thing  and 
inspire  it  throughout  the  whole  period  of  its 
vitality.  And  the  principles  of  protestantism 
are  the  principles  of  democracy  ;  they  are  the 
freedom  to  be  guided  by  the  Law — freedom 
to  do  that  to  which  all  are  inspired  by  the 
elemental  and  dominant  force  of  life.  The 
principle  of  life  is  freedom  to  grow  in 
obedience.  The  principle  of  protestantism 
is  the  right  of  the  individual  to  think  in 
accordance  with  the  light  given  his  mind 
and  his  conscience,  provided  these  stand 
disciplined  in  humility  and  reverential  before 
the  Law.  The  principle  of  democracy  is 
the  right  of  the  individual  to  act  as  his 
sense  of  right  instructs  him,  provided  he 
looks  upon  charity  as  the  beacon-light  of 
conduct.  Both  protestantism  and  democracy 


232  THE  RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

are  incompatible  with  self-seeking  or  the 
lust  of  power  or  the  craving  for  unearned 
riches.  Both  protestantism  and  democracy, 
I  hold — and  some  at  least  among  you  will 
not  dispute  it — can  exist  in  purity  only  when 
their  meaning  is  defined  in  the  words  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  despite  the  arguments 
of  the  political  economist  as  to  the  unpractical 
nature  of  its  doctrines. 

Protestantism  and  democracy,  then, 
whether  judged  in  the  light  of  Christ's 
teachings  or  in  the  spirit  of  philosophic 
freedom,  mean  but  one  thing :  the  eternal 
worth  of  the  individual  in  tJie  cosmic  Law. 
To  hold  that  man's  chief  value  lies  in  the 
fact  that  he  is  an  item  in  the  construction 
of  a  whole,  be  that  whole  a  church  or  a  state, 
is,  if  you  allow  the  theory  its  logical  con- 
clusion, to  justify  clericalism  on  the  one 
hand,  socialism  on  the  other;  and  both 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        233 

represent  the  very  antithesis  of  that  indi- 
vidualism which  I  say  is  the  basis  of 
Christianity,  the  spirit  of  protestantism,  the 
aim  of  democracy.  The  Church,  you  will 
surely  admit,  exists  more  for  the  sake  of 
the  individuals  composing  it  than  for 
glorifying  God  apart  from  their  welfare ; 
and  the  State  stands  mainly  for  the  sake 
of  justifying  and  encouraging  the  personal 
rights  of  its  component  members,  however 
expedient  it  may  appear  to  repress  the 
starving  and  restrict  the  vicious  that  the 
mighty  may  sit  comfortably  in  their  seats. 
Conceive  of  the  medical  profession  existing 
primarily  for  its  colleges  and  hospitals  and 
practitioners,  rather  than  for  its  patients ! 
or  even  for  the  understanding  of  disease 
rather  than  for  the  relief  of  suffering  !  Con- 
ceive of  railways  being  justified  in  their 
dividends,  rather  than  in  the  needs  of  those 


234  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

who  would  travel !  Both  Church  and  State 
stand  solely  because  of  the  needs  of  the 
failing  and  suffering  ;  they  are  human  institu- 
tions, and  will  prove  the  more  truly  so  as 
their  members  obey  their  religious  sense, 
and  know  both  Church  and  State  to  be 
divine  because  inspired  by  the  eternal  Law. 

Before  I  close  I  must  gather  some  of 
my  threads  together,  especially  because,  in 
speaking  of  freedom,  I  may  appear  to  have 
wandered  from  my  initial  argument,  and 
to  have  lost  sight  of  the  point  I  set  out  to 
prove — viz.  that  the  religious  sense  is  as 
much  part  of  our  inheritance  as  any  other 
of  our  vital  attributes. 

It  may  appear  to  some  that  the  very 
idea  of  freedom  implies  a  sense  inimical  to 
that  of  obligation  and  obedience  ;  you  may 
say  that  our  only  thought,  when  we  desire 
freedom,  is  to  be  quit  of  our  obligations, 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        235 

even  if  these  be  the  exalted  obligations  of 
service,  but  especially  if  they  necessitate 
renunciation  of  individual  rights.  But  if 
you  claim  this,  you  are  putting  an  inter- 
pretation upon  the  word  freedom  which  is 
not  sanctioned  by  reason.  I  conceive  that 
in  your  sense  of  the  word  you  would  wish 
to  be  free  to  choose  what  you  would  have, 
uninfluenced  by  any  impulsion  or  obliga- 
tion from  the  outside :  for  to  be  impelled 
by  any  motive  whatever  is  to  be  a  slave 
to  that  motive.  In  other  words,  you  would 
prefer  to  act  without  any  definite  purpose 
in  view :  for  to  have  purpose  would  be, 
for  you,  to  act  under  obligation  to  that 
purpose,  which  is  the  reductio  ad  absurdum. 
Not  God  Himself  can  act  without  the  motive 
and  obligation  of  His  purpose  ;  and  therefore, 
according  to  your  idea  of  freedom,  no  divine 
being,  however  omnipotent,  could  be  really 


236  THE  RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

free  in  action  unless  untrammelled  by  obliga- 
tion and  motive — unless,  indeed,  you  can 
imagine  a  God  who  should  create  without 
any  idea  of  what  He  was  going  to  make  ! 

No,  the  whole  conception  of  freedom  is 
opportunity  to  grow  in  obedience  to  the 
law  of  our  highest  nature,  unhindered, 
except  so  far  as  hindrances  that  we  can 
overcome  will  strengthen  in  us  the  power 
to  grow.  A  man's  freedom  is  shown  not 
in  carving  out  his  own  fancied  idea  of 
what  is  good  for  him,  but  in  choosing 
which  course  he  will  pursue  :  the  easy  and 
slothful  and  parasitic,  which  will  save  him 
from  the  labour  of  obedience  and  that 
increase  of  obligation  which  work  eternally 
brings ;  or  the  difficult,  strenuous,  and  in- 
dependent course,  in  the  pursuit  of  which 
he  attains  freedom  and  power  in  an  in- 
creasing conformity  with  the  eternal  Will. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        237 

The  subject  is  vast,  and  I  would  willingly 
say  much  more  upon  it  if  time  were  at 
our  disposal.  Suffice  it  to  say  now  that  it 
needs  no  special  pleading,  casuistry,  or 
philosophic  apology  to  make  the  truth  of 
it  apparent ;  for  everyone  who  seeks  freedom 
knows  that  my  words  are  true,  and  that 
the  only  way  of  obtaining  freedom  lies  in 
strenuous  obedience  to  the  Law,  whose 
purpose  in  us  is  the  evolution  of  our  growth. 
The  Buddhist's  conception  of  the  ideal 
desired  by  one  who  sacrifices  all  earthly  joy 
to  the  attainment  of  this  ideal,  is  freedom  ; 
and,  different  though  the  Oriental  passivity 
is  from  the  Western  activity  in  matters  of 
life  and  religion,  their  ultimate  ideals  do  not 
widely  differ.  In  both,  the  service  of  others 
and  the  renunciation  of  self  are  the  only 
possible  stepping-stones  to  the  attainment 
of  that  freedom  which  is  but  co-operation 


238  THE  RELIGIOUS  SENSE 

with  the  Law  that  all  Nature  obeys,  and 
which  has,  in  its  power  of  service,  created 
all  things. 

Whatever  system  of  philosophy  we  patro- 
nize or  form  of  faith  we  embrace,  as  practical 
men  and  women  with  ideals  transcending 
our  personal  success,  we  shall  all  admit  that 
freedom  can  be  reached  only  in  the  renuncia- 
tion of  self-seeking.  Quite  as  surely,  and 
judging  in  like  spirit,  we  perceive  that  the 
only  form  of  effective  renunciation  is  that 
which  is  necessitated  by  service  to  our 
neighbour  and  the  Law  under  which  we 
serve.  While  we  believe  that  the  higher  life 
is  found  only  by  losing  the  lower  from  which 
we  arise,  we  must,  I  think,  no  less  hold  that 
the  only  asceticism  consonant  with  the  Law 
is  that  which  is  sought  because  a  means  to 
fruitful  service,  and  not  for  its  purposeless 
starving  either  of  body  or  soul. 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        239 

"  And  yet,"  you  will  say  in  a  last  desire 
to  be  absolutely  truthful,  "  look  what  freedom 
brings  in  its  train  !  Were  it  not  better  for 
us  to  be  a  socialistic  community  of  bees, 
where  all  are  equal,  where  rapacity  and  vice 
are  made  impossible  by  a  rigid  mechanical 
repression  ?  What  profits  us  our  liberty 
when  the  fruit  of  its  immediate  germina- 
tion is  licence?  What  profits  power 
when  those  who  attain  it  degrade  it  into 
tyranny  ?  " 

These  questions  which  you  ask  are  but 
questions  concerning  our  limitations  and 
that  extraordinary  tendency  in  all  life  to 
pursue  the  easy  way  rather  than  the  road 
leading  upwards  to  excellence.  The  higher 
we  ascend  in  our  evolution,  the  greater  is 
the  demand  upon  us  for  growth ;  and,  as 
the  inevitable  corollary  of  this  truth,  the 
greater  is  the  fall  if  we  lose  hold  of  our  ideal. 


240  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

At  each  stage  of  our  increasing  freedom 
we  acquire  an  increase  in  power  of  choice  ; 
for  we  are  learning  to  take  share  in  the 
eternal  purpose.  The  greater  our  freedom 
the  greater  our  power — for  good  or  for 
evil.  The  higher  we  have  reached  in  width 
of  life,  and  the  greater  our  attainment  of 
intellectual  and  ethical  riches,  the  greater 
the  possibility  in  us  of  using  that  power 
well  or  ill. 

And  if  we  use  our  gifts  ill,  the  greater 
they  be,  the  deeper  will  be  the  prostitution 
of  our  ideal.  If  obedience  to  physiological 
needs  is  degraded,  the  worship  of  self  is 
instituted  and  the  dignity  of  the  individual 
is  shamed.  If  obedience  to  that  instinctive 
social  sense  which  is  something  akin  to  love 
is  admitted  for  the  sake  of  the  comfort  and 
peace  it  brings,  and  not  from  an  inherent 
desire  for  neighbourly  service,  it  becomes 


THE   RELIGION  OF  FREEDOM        241 

mechanical  and  unevolutional ;  and  the  pro- 
gress of  the  Law  is  arrested.  If  the  freedom 
our  ancestors  have  won  for  us  over  tyrants, 
ignorance  and  vice  is  utilized  for  the  sake 
of  the  power  it  has  given  us  to  tyrannize 
and  dogmatize,  or  to  justify  our  vices  as 
natural  law,  then  is  Freedom  prostituted 
into  licence,  and  her  devotees,  once  strong 
in  the  strength  which  comes  of  freedom 
earned  in  obedience  to  a  just  master, 
become  slaves  to  the  tyrant  No-law. 

And  yet  another  last  word  I  would  say  to 
you  students — and  God  help  us  who  would 
teach  if  we  be  not  also  students  among 
you ! — do  not  let  us  think  that  evolution  is 
consummated  in  our  own  persons  or  our 
society ;  do  not  let  us  imagine  that  political 
freedom  is  yet  won ;  do  not  let  us  think  the 
Law  has  set  limitations  upon  the  work  it 
would  accomplish  ;  do  not  let  us  drift  into 

16 


242  THE   RELIGIOUS   SENSE 

philosophical  contentment  with  our  world, 
and  think  that  things,  dogmas  and  limita- 
tions must  be  accepted  merely  because  they 
have  stood  the  test  of  time,  or  because  we 
do  not  see  how  they  can  be  bettered.  We 
must  still  be  protestants  if  we  would  grow ; 
and,  alas  !  we  must  still  make  blunders  and 
amend  them  if  we  would  learn.  There  are 
still  as  many  and  as  mighty  lies  besetting 
us  as  were  ever  slain  by  the  prophets.  And 
if  our  protestantism  is  strong  within  us,  if 
it  lives  in  virtue  of  our  earning  freedom 
in  an  increase  of  service,  we  need  not  fear 
our  evolution. 

As  our  password  into  the  realms  of  know- 
ledge, as  our  beacon  amidst  the  dark  paths 
of  conflicting  obligations,  as  our  sword  in 
the  struggles  with  material  needs  and 
temptations,  we  may  hold  in  our  hearts  that 
saying  of  Martin  Luther  through  which 


THE   RELIGION   OF   FREEDOM        243 

must  come  freedom  to  churches,  states,  and 
schools :  "  My  conscience  is  a  captive  to 
God's  word." 


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